


Living/Breathing

by sadbrowngirlpoetry



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Drama, Explicit Language, F/M, Family, Friends to Lovers, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-06 12:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadbrowngirlpoetry/pseuds/sadbrowngirlpoetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bella asks Jacob to leave Forks with her — he accepts. Only the web of the supernatural she has caught herself into is not easy to escape. A re-write of New Moon, beginning on page 286 in Chapter 12: "Intruder".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Intruder (Revisited)

**Author's Note:**

> Frequent lifts from The Twilight Saga (sorry 'bout that).

 

_Love is untamed force;  
when we try to control it, it destroys us;  
when we try to imprison it, it enslaves us._   
_When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused. _ __  
__

Paulo Coelho, _The Zahir_

 

 

 

 _so why don't we go somewhere only we know  
_ Keane, "Somewhere Only We Know"

 

_  
_

 

_Page 286 of Stephenie Meyer's New Moon_

 

 

I didn't like that — didn't like the way his eyes closed as if he were in pain when he spoke of being bound. More than dislike — I realized I hated it, hated anything that caused him pain. Hated it fiercely.

Sam's face filled my mind.

For me, this was all essentially voluntary. I protected the Cullens' secret out of love; unrequited, but true. For Jacob, it didn't seem to be that way.

"Isn't there any way for you to get free?" I whispered, touching the rough edge at the back of his short hair.

His hands began to tremble, but he didn't open his eyes. "No. I'm in this for life. A life sentence." A bleak laugh. "Longer, maybe."

"No, Jake," I moaned. "What if we ran away? Just you and me. What if we left home, and left Sam behind?"

Jacob's eyes went wide with shock. He was probably trying to figure out whether I was bluffing or not. "It's not something I can run away from, Bella," he contended.

"Let's . . . Let's just _go_ ," I faltered. "Tonight — just us."

"Would you do that for me?" he asked, trying to buy time, consider his options.

"Uh-huh," I asserted. On impulse, I reached out to him and grabbed his warm hand with my own shaky one.

He opened his mouth to say something — a chocked noise came out instead. He took a breath. Two. He nodded slightly.

It was good enough for me.

He slumped down onto the bed, watching me as I hastily pulled my backpack off the top shelf of the closet.

I frantically jerked my drawers open. What did I need? My hands fumbled through their content. Socks; a few changes of underwear — I was certain that my blush was unmistakable in the dim light of my bedroom as I neatly placed the lacy and cotton undergarments Renee had given me on my seventeenth birthday inside the backpack; my Chuck Taylors; a few t-shirts; a pair of shorts and a couple pairs of jeans. I emptied my purse until I found my wallet and shoved it into the backpack. I hesitated a little bit as my fingers traced the broken spine, then threw my copy of _Wuthering Heights_ inside as well.

I refrained from taking my cell phone; my number would be the first one Charlie would call and I wouldn't bear to ignore call after desperate call.

 _Charlie._ Damn it. What would happen to Charlie if I left?

I had already done it once, and that had crushed him. I had seen the pain in his eyes when I had shouted that I didn't want to end up like my mother, stuck in this godforsaken town.

It wasn't the same now, though. Last time, I had left to protect him from the vicious hunter, James. Who am I trying to protect now? Jacob? Or myself?

And hat would Charlie think if, instead of his daughter's own words, betrayal was imprinted on empty drawers and a missing Emily Brontë book?

"I need to write a note," I informed Jacob. He nodded; he understood. I thought of Billy. Who would take care of him after I so selfishly decided to run away with his son, knowing very well that he wouldn't be able to say no? I hoped that Sue would be kind enough to do so.

My hands were shaking again. What was I going to write?

I sighed.

I ripped a piece of paper from a notebook, grabbed a pen from the desk, and started writing:

_Charlie _ _—__ _

No.

Disgusted with myself, I crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it in the trash.

_Dad _ _ _—____

_I'm leaving for a while. I don't know for how long._

I stopped, contemplated.

_It's just ... you were right _—_ I need to leave  
Forks for a while. You don't have to worry.  
Jacob is with me. And I'm taking my pepper  
spray __—__ just in case. Please don't chase us  
and, for heaven's sake, don't threaten Jacob  
with the shotgun when you see him again.  
Tell Billy not to worry and that we're going to __  
be okay._

_Love, Bella_

I stared at the words for a moment. Impulsively, I added:

_PS. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell Mom._

I set the piece of paper on my desk.

I looked up and glanced at Jacob's naked torso. "Don't you need a shirt or something?" I asked. Jacob shook his head.

"Well, _I'_ ll get you one. Can't have you catching a cold, right?" I joked, but the words came out of my mouth distorted.

I made sure he didn't decide to hurdle out of my window on the spur of the moment and disappear into the night, just as unexpectedly as he materialized outside my bedroom minutes ago. For a moment I dreaded he might do it, but he didn't move an inch.

The door to Charlie's bedroom was ajar — I gingerly walked inside, being mindful of any noise coming from my own room. The only sound came from the TV across from Charlie's bed. I cast a quick glance at a disheveled Charlie sprawled across his bed, and veered toward the closet at the far side of the room. After some examination, I found a faded plaid shirt that _could_ fit. I unhooked it from the hanger, shut the closet door, and left Charlie's room as quickly as I entered it.

"It was the only thing that fitted you," I said apologetically, handing Jacob the shirt.

I stood there, as he donned it — it _did_ fit.

"I'm ready," I said, more to myself than him, really. "Are _you_?" Jacob remained silent and stared at his feet instead. "Do you want to leave something for Billy?" I asked, biting my lip. Was he having second thoughts?

Jacob hesitated, then shook his head.

Eventually, we made it to the truck. I tripped on an unidentified object — he didn't tease me like he always did. This terrified me as much as it comforted me.

We both got in the truck slowly, like every movement hurt.

That was it. There was no turning back now.

I turned the key in the ignition and prayed Charlie didn't wake up.

Jacob cast a weary glance at me. I smiled. "Where are we going?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

I stared at the road ahead of us. "Somewhere sunny," I said confidently as I stepped on the gas.

* * *

Street lights were flickering fleetly as I sped past them, when my determination faltered.

A mile before the interstate _—_ around the time when Jacob switched from shifting and stirring in his seat and moaning under his breath to digging his fingernails into the timeworn leather beneath him _—_ I stopped the car and prepared to back out. Sleep it off. Realize the extent of my nonsense.

The _alive_ part of my brain implored, _It's not too late. You can still go back. It's for the best._

I silenced it.

I inhaled a gulp of air, squared my shoulders, and started the truck.

No, I wouldn't falter. Not this time.

The only sound that disrupted the silence was the rumbling of the Chevy.

The voice I had so vigorously been striving to ignore _—_ the stern voice of my reason _—_ called me out on my hypocrisy.

Jacob. His happiness, his _sanity_ had been the only things swirling inside my mind, when I'd said "to hell with everything" and packed up a few belongings.

But was that really all of it?

Weren't my instincts, for once, overpowering my poor judgment?

 _No_ , I reminded myself. After months of apathetic mourning, was it really reasonable to settle for anything other than hopeless resignation?

I was doing this for Jacob.

The hours flicked by, and, when I glanced at my watch, the hands were pointing downwards — six thirty. My eyelids fought against fatigue to remain open.

During the five hours of our trip, we had passed endless dull expanses of greenery, lit by the faint glow that emanated from arrays upon arrays of street lamps.

Jacob had mostly been quiet during the journey; the only tangible signs of his presence were the nail marks on the passenger seat and the sound of his snoring after he succumbed to the depletion that followed the stress of the night. I, on the other hand, was remarkably more relaxed now — I had been tense and nervous until the Seattle lights became little shimmering dots.

I gazed at Jake's face from the driver seat; he looked so peaceful, so innocent, so _young_. _That's because he_ is, I thought. My eyes fell on the reflection of myself in the rear-view mirror, and I winced. The face that had seemed to be aging so quickly months ago didn't belong to someone all that old, either.

We drove until dawn before stopping for gas. Well, _I_ did, anyway.

I clambered out of the claustrophobic truck and trudged along the narrow sidewalk. The cool breeze was such a contrast to the warmth inside that I shuddered. The self-service gas station, illuminated by a neon lamppost, looked entirely abandoned.

I clasped my hands around the pump and bit my lip in uncertainty.

My cohabitation with Reneé and my self-banishment to Forks proved to be educating and life-skill–obtaining experiences, for sure. It had been established that, between my mother and myself, I was the adult — though what that indicated about Reneé's maturity, I didn't know — and I honestly had no idea how Charlie survived on bacon and takeaway before I started prodding him to be mindful of his health.

Still, I was an eighteen year-old girl, ready to throw family, friends, and life in the trash to be with my boyfriend — removing the "vampire" label made my decision seem even more foolish. Even now, I was reiterating this in order to protect my best friend. My actions and decisions always seemed to be defined by and relied on others, but without the safety blanket my forgetful, immature mother and introspective, sometimes helpless father provided, I was completely clueless about the "real" world.

What was I going to do, anyway? Try to forge a new life? This was material for a coming of age film, and, even though certain events in my life had included coincidences of soap opera proportions, part of me was painfully aware of the fact that the real world didn't work this way.

And yet here I was, driving in the middle of the night, destination: unknown.


	2. Inquisition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely satisfied with this. I promise, though, the story *will* get better — my state of mind and school performance, on the other hand, will probably deteriorate and crumble into tiny, jagged pieces (ooh, here's a line I'll be using in the future! Mark my words).

_why can't we speak another language / one we all agree on_  
Ellie Goulding, "Wish I Stayed" _ _ _  
___

Hours passed, and panic began to set in.

The more sensible part of my mind kept questioning my sanity. I ignored it, as I always seemed to do with reason, anyway, and distracted myself with another important, more immediate question.

Where would we stay?

My thoughts momentarily wavered to the hotel in Phoenix — the same hotel wherein I had spent agonizing hours with Alice and Jasper, trying to flee James and his bloodlust. I honestly didn't know why I thought of that place — perhaps because everything the Cullens had provided, everything they had so generously bestowed upon me, would always be superior to the things I could acquire and achieve on my own.

I found a motel somewhere in northern Oregon; a cheesy neon sign stood before it, flickering rhythmically, bearing the words _Willamette Falls Inn_. I fumbled through my backpack to retrieve my wallet, and, with slow, labored steps, walked toward the motel's main entrance.

The lobby . . . wasn't a good indicator of the presumptive state of our room. There was the front desk on the far left side and a few low tables with uncomfortable-looking armchairs surrounding them. The walls were painted a sickly yellow color. Overall, I'd say the place didn't get cleaned particularly often.

The receptionist, a woman in her mid-forties, seemed to be engrossed in the tabloid she was reading, and I had to call for her attention several times before she finally acknowledged my presence.

"Room for two?" I stammered out, not intending my words to sound like the squealed question they hedged.

"Singles or double?" she asked in a monotone voice.

"Du— Single." The word came out in a rushed spurt, and the heat on my face was instant. _Double?_ Where had that come from? My stomach twinged unpleasantly, and I realized I felt a bit disappointed with my slapdash decision. _Snap out of it, Bella._

The woman handed me an old-fashioned key. "Have a good stay," she drones, tapping a long, red nail on the desk, eager to resume her reading. I nodded.

I walked quickly toward the Chevy.

"Jake?" I whispered as I opened the passenger door. Jacob stirred in his sleep and muttered something incoherent. "Jacob?" I pressed, more loudly this time.

He jolted in surprise. "Huh? Bells?" he asked, suppressing a yawn.

"I found us a place to stay. It's a motel, but it's okay. It's the only thing we can afford, sorry."

Jacob's lips turned up in a smile. "And I'm used to staying in five-star hotels, right?" he bantered. "Don't worry about it," he reassured me wearily.

I gently helped him out of the car — as soon as my skin touched his, I felt the heat literally _radiate_ from him.

"Jake, you're burning up," I gasped, pulling back my arm.

"Nah, it's nothing," he said, waving me off. "Really," he added, in response to my precarious expression.

Together we walked toward the door with the number _25_ engraved on it.

After I put the key in the rusty lock and opened the door, I realized that our room was even greasier than the lobby would indicate.

I put Jake to his bed _—_ a big task in itself — and set my backpack on the foot of mine. My eyes examined my surroundings in horror. The place has surely been cleaned a _very_ long time ago. I suppressed my sudden urge to go to the nearest convenience store and buy a bottle of Mop & Glo. And rubber gloves.

The room itself was pretty standard. All the walls but one were painted a pristine white _—_ the one across from me was a soft orange. The beds were covered in white sheets and fleecy brown blankets. Tiles in the color of ocher, grime collected at the joints between them, covered the bathroom walls. I placed my hands under the faucet and hurriedly washed my face.

I was really doing this.

This wasn't a short-term kind of situation; I wasn't leaving for a few days, until the danger was "exterminated". I didn't even know whether I was going back. Well, I _would_ go back, eventually _—_ but 'eventually' couldn't be predetermined.

And where would we go? Drive across the states, like fleeing convicts? Running from fathers with shotguns and ruthless, bloodthirsty vampires?

My reflection, doe-eyed and clueless, glared back at me accusingly.

* * *

I woke up with a start around noon.

Jacob was still asleep in his bed, but Charlie's shirt had somehow gone missing. I wriggled around, still in a state of drowsiness, before I finally sat up. The fleecy material of the blanket was making my skin itchy.

I thought I probably ought to take a shower.

I shut the bathroom door securely behind me. I turned on the water, stripped out of my damp with sweat clothes, and jumped into the shower. There wasn't as much hot water as I would have liked, but there was enough to get the job done. Sometimes I missed the single bathroom at Charlie's house. That was one of those times.

Fifteen minutes later, I emerged, feeling considerably more refreshed than before. I grabbed two dry towels from the towel-rail — one for my body, and one to wrap my hair in. I hastily pulled on a pair of jeans and an old printed t-shirt, and untangled my hair with my fingers.

I looked in the mirror. My face looked paler than ever and weary; I might as well not have slept at all.

With a sigh, I grabbed my dirty clothes and headed back into the room.

Jacob's loud snoring greeted me.

I blindly fumbled for my backpack, retrieving my wallet. It was nearly empty. I estimated that one third of the money inside would pay for the motel, one third for lunch, and the rest for other essentials.

With Jacob still asleep, I drove to the nearest ATM.

My fingers froze over the buttons.

Should I withdraw small amounts of money each time we needed it or all at once? Sure enough, no one would try to rob me with Jake around.

I had a fleeting where I thought I heard the approaching sound of steps behind me and almost darted for the truck, but it was no one, and I was just being stupid.

I hesitated, then withdrew the entire amount of my college savings.

Like thorns, thoughts of Harvard and Yale and Princeton prickled my mind.

I quickly reminded myself that Ivy League education had never been on top in my list of priorities — it had been on Edward's, and the University of Washington was a great college anyway.

Then, of course, I remembered than I detested Washington's gloomy, omnipresent shade.

On my way to the room, I made a stop at the front desk to pay for our stay. The room wasn't as cheap as I had expected it to be. I frowned as I pulled the bills out of my wallet and realized with chagrin that if we continued to spend as much on accommodation, money would run out, and it would run out fast.

Jacob was up when I got back.

"What's up, Bells?" I blinked. It felt as if days or weeks had passed, when it was a few minutes. He sounded more like himself and less like the strained, distant man of my recent memory. He was grinning as well; it was his "Jake" smile, the one I had missed _so much_. That's a good sign.

"Nothing much," I muttered. "Wanna grab some breakfast?"

"Hell yeah!"

We drove to a nearby diner — it was a place of questionable hygiene, with a layer of grease covering the Formica-surfaced tables — and ordered eggs, pancakes, and orange juice. The waitress that brought our food flirtatiously batted her eyelashes at Jacob — the same trick I had used a long time ago on him _—_ and giggled when he handed her a twenty-dollar bill. I simply rolled my eyes. Jacob flashed a cocky grin.

She really was nothing special, as I tried to convince myself. Sure, she possessed curves and roundness in places I didn't and had lovely blue eyes that made my brown ones pale in comparison. If I were honest with myself, I'd have burst into bitter, internal tirades, had I not been sure that Jacob simply wanted to annoy me.

I noticed the waitress subtly place a small, crumpled piece of paper under the stack of napkins. The numbers 6, 4 and 9 were distinguishable, along with the name Claire written in careful handwriting _—_ the tittle over the _i_ was replaced by a tiny heart.

I snorted.

I didn't eat much; I just stared at Jacob devouring three whole plates of scrambled eggs and buttermilk pancakes and gulping down half a gallon of juice and smiled.

It was _Jake_. It was almost Jake again.

"Whu?" he asked, mouth still full, which in English-whilst-munching meant: What?

I let out a groan. "How is it physically possible for you to eat so much?" I finally asked. "And still look so . . . " I struggled to find the right word for a moment.

"Hot? Drop-dead gorgeous? Dashing? C'mon, Bells, don't be shy! Tell me how you really feel," he chaffed, and I felt my cheeks burn as I thought of my first, pathetic attempt at riding a bike. More specifically, I recalled those moments _after_ I fell and wounded my head, and a strange warming, tickling sensation made my toes curl.

"I was going to say something along the lines of _not a cow_ , but that works, too," I quipped.

"Huh. If I knew you'd be in such a good mood, I'd probably have left with you earlier."

"Ha, ha, that's funny. Because all I remember is you ignoring me," I retorted, and the smile faded from Jacob's lips. "I still need an explanation."

"It's not that simple, Bells," Jacob rejoined.

"What is not simple?" I asked impatiently. It wasn't as if it was none of my business. This was between _us_. I told him so, but Jacob shook his head.

"No, Bella. This isn't about _you_ ," he contended.

The cheeriness from before completely evaporated, and the tension was almost tangible.

"Well, I still need to know. You can't just hide stuff from me and expect me not to ask you about it!" I was exasperated now.

The silence that followed was awkward and stiff.

"I know. I'm sorry," Jacob finally conceded.

"Good."

"We okay?"

"Hmph."

"You're so stubborn." I smiled wryly — my lips twitched, forming a grimace. "I'm not telling you."

"Fine."

We headed back to the motel to pick up our few belongings, more than eager to get the hell out of Washington's cloudy, rainy neighbor.

I was one hundred and ten percent certain that the Chevy would undoubtedly provide far better accommodation than our last lodging.

As for the flirty waitress, she would surely be very disappointed when she found the little note with her phone number on it still lying on table 4.

* * *

We drove until daybreak, hardly paying any attention to the dull landscape. I sort of missed the Forks greenery, but quickly pushed away every thought of the grim little town.

At least the Motel 6 we found on the outskirts of Cheyenne was cleaner than the previous one. Moderately.

"Hey, Bells? Did you see any diners on the way? I'm starving," Jacob moaned and patted his belly. This induced a blank stare from me.

"You can't be serious," I scolded.

"What? We've been driving for eighteen hours."

"Well, yeah. But you gobbled up everything but the table this morning. If I'd eaten that much, I'd diet for a month!"

"I dunno, I'm a guy?" Jacob retorted a little too defensively.

"Pfft, whatever. I think there's a twenty-four/seven diner a mile from here. Happy?"

"Very."

I nibbled on the French fries I ordered, observing Jacob making a pig of himself.

Unwittingly, my eyes fell on his biceps, flexed under the rolled-up sleeves. How did the boy with the round edges of boyishness around his chin become such a . . . _man_ , all of a sudden?

"Seriously, how do you do this?" I asked curiously.

"I told you. I'm a guy. That's what we do; we eat, we get away with it," he jested. I narrowed my eyes in disbelief.

"Okay, then," I conceded. I was restless, though. It wasn't about the food — it was about mutual trust. "Damn it, Jacob —"

"Don't, Bells," he interjected. "I am not the only one keeping things from the other."

This took me aback. What did he mean? I hadn't kept anything from Jacob. "What are you talking about, Jacob?" I inquired.

"Oh, _I_ don't know."

"You are weird," I inferred. We didn't really say anything afterward.

We drove in silence back to the motel and, wordlessly, prepared for bed.

* * *

I was alone when I opened my eyes, panting and covered in sweat.

I scanned the small, dimly lit room with tired eyes. The digital clock on the nightstand indicated that it was seven thirteen.

The pale light of a lamp post seeped through the chinks in the blinds.

I got up from the uncomfortable bed and looked over the dim room cautiously _— h_ is shirt was discarded on the foot of his bed.

I _would_ look for him, but I was too tired and still too vexed. Maybe he had left _—_ the mere thought momentarily stole my breath. Maybe he was in the bathroom. I glanced at the crack under the door. No light.

I got under the covers. I would deal with all of this in the morning.

The creak of a door opening woke me up at seven forty-five.

Jacob, making no sound at all, pressing on the balls of his feet, made his way to his bed, where he collapsed.

I let him sleep.

* * *

Someone was moaning.

My eyes flew open.

It wasn't me, facing the aftermath of yet another nightmare.

It was Jacob.

A low, muffled whimper. "I have to go back."

* * *

A nudge on my shoulder woke me up once again. _Five more minutes, Charlie?_

My eyes sprang open, searching for my father. Instead, they met Jacob's tall frame cowering over me.

"Gah, Bells! I was wondering when you'd wake up! C'mon, get up, get up! It's noon already and I'm starving!"

"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered under my breath.

After we got in the car, I squandered no time.

"Where were you last night?"

Jacob chuckled nervously. "What do you mean _where I was_? In my bed, snoring like a banshee —"

"Except you weren't," I interjected.

Jacob sighed. "Fine. I went outside to get some fresh air," he quibbled.

"That's crap, and you know it," I retorted. "You were up to something and I want to know what!"

"Stop," a voice ordered. I gasped in shock.

"This is none of your business!" Jacob hissed as his body begun to violently vibrate.

"Don't provoke him, Bella. You need to calm him down." Somehow, the velvet texture of Edward's voice slapped some sense into me, and I recoiled.

"Jake?" I asked reluctantly. "Are you . . . are you okay?" There was a spark in his eyes — just for a moment — and then it stopped. He was calm again. Still a little shaken, but calm nonetheless.

There was an empty spot, a stiff silence where Edward's voice had been before. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.

"I'm sorry, okay? I just . . . I will explain everything. Eventually," he promised. "It's not my decision to make."

"You're being cryptic," I said with a frown.

"I know. I'm sorry," Jacob said apologetically.

Fine. I wasn't not going to get an explanation out of him today. "Let's go get stuffed, then, shall we?" I suggested with a sigh.

"That's my girl."

During breakfast we talked about the truck.

"We should probably trade it," Jacob suggested.

"I'm sorry, _what_?" I can't believe he just said that. "But you practically _rebuilt_ the thing from scratch, Jake. And it's holding up just fine," I scoffed. "And I happen to like it, and, whether you like it or not, _I_ get to decide what we are going to do with it. And _I_ say that we're _not_ trading it. Or selling it, or dumping it at some junk year," I continued confidently.

"Well, Charlie's a cop—"

"And your point is?"

"He's also Charlie," he added with a wink.

Well, yeah. Charlie _was_ Charlie; a man of few words, didn't hover, et cetera, et cetera.

He also owned a shotgun.

"C'mon, Bells. Do you expect him to just sit there and let his daughter run off with a teenage boy?" he asked, smirking.

I rolled my eyes. "I left him a note. He knows I'll be fine. Plus, I took my pepper spray."

"Your _pepper spray_? Gee, Bells, why didn't you tell me before? Phew, then."

"This is a stupid idea, Jake. We _will_ go back eventually, you know."

"Aw, Bells! Am I _such_ a bad companion?" he whined childishly.

"Jake," I sighed. "We're teenagers, we're frivolous; we can't live our lives on the road forever. You have high school to graduate and I have . . . ambitions for myself as well."

"Oh. And foolish me thought you weren't just fucking with me when you said that dramatic 'Tonight — just us'. I guess you _are_ a frivolous teenager."

I scowled at him. "Jake, there's something you've been hiding from me. What did they do to you? I've been worried sick for all these weeks —"

" _They_? You mean, Sam?" he cut me off, his face a mask of perplexity. I nodded vigorously —

— and Jacob did the most annoying thing; he let out a loud bark of laughter. "No, Bells. I was . . . I was wrong. I misjudged Sam. He . . . he's cool," he said, still snickering.

" _Misjudged_?" I asked incredulously. "Jacob, all the things you said about him . . . He — He _brainwashes_ all these kids. They're your _friends_ , Jacob. What did he tell you? How did he get to you?" I shook my head in disgust, thinking of Jared and Embry. They're only _kids_.

"Look, Bells," he began, avoiding my burning glare, "there are things you don't know, things I _want_ to tell you, but I _can't_. Can't you understand? There are secrets, Bells. Secrets I can't disclose, not even to you. When the time comes, I'll explain everything, I promise."

"That's not good enough," I protested.

Jacob sighed, a smile playing on the corners of his lips. "Well, then, if you are so curious, maybe you should guess."

Guess? How on earth could I guess when he was being so cryptic?

"I'll give you a clue. Do you remember my —" He paused, smiled. "Do you remember my scary story, Bella?" he asked.

I tilted my head in confusion. And then I remembered _—_ our first conversation, at the beach at La Push, seemed like a distant memory.

"What does that have to do with your being a secretive jerk?" I retorted.

Jacob chuckled. "Just . . . just try to remember, okay?"

"Whatever. You're weird."

"Okay."

We didn't drive today _—_ we stayed at the motel. Jacob fell asleep on the instant his face touched the pillow on his bed, but I couldn't seem to find serenity.

The scruffy, tawny rug had collected dust and lint. There was a sizable cleft on the wall across from the beds. The last rays of sunlight glowed feebly through the blinds.

Jacob slept for twelve hours straight. _Boys._ I thought about what he'd said. _Try to remember._ Try to remember what exactly?

I flipped _Wuthering Heights_ open and got lost for a while in the swirl of words and doomed, destructive relationships.

_"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it."_

My drowsiness finally won over my stream of consciousness.

_"Then there are the stories about the cold ones."_

_". . . stories of the cold ones as old as the wolf legends . . ."_

_". . . the wolves that turn into men . . . You would call them werewolves . . ."_

Something was choking me, when I woke up _—_ a lump in my throat that I couldn't seem to be able to swallow down.

 _Werewolf._ The word lingered in my mind as I strove to remember how to breathe again.

I stared at Jacob, still sprawled on his bed, snoring like his life depended on it. His shirt was thrown on the floor.

I glanced at the clock; the numbers _1:30_ shone faintly on the dark screen.

 _Come on, Bella, get serious_. Where did this werewolf thing come from?

I sighed. Vampires _and_ werewolves? This wasn't a fantasy novel _—_ this was reality. There couldn't be much room for monsters in reality.

In my sleep I heard howling.

* * *

The rain was falling in relentless, icy sheets on the windshield of the truck.

I cast a brief glance at Jacob's face from the passenger seat _— he_ was driving today. "None of this makes sense, Jake," I said eventually. "I need a real explanation."

"Do you remember?" he asked, avoiding to give me an enlightening answer.

"I need a _real_ explanation," I repeated, more demanding this time.

"Well, I can't give you one _now_ ," he said. In response to my incredulous stare, he continued, "I can't function without food, Bells." He rubbed his stomach for effect. "Besides . . . I thought you'd have figured it out by now."

"None of —" I winced at my inability to find the right words. "— _this_ makes sense," I said, for lack of a better description.

Jacob cracked a smile. "But I've already given away too much. Tell me, though. What _do_ you remember?"

I sighed in exasperation. "What exactly am I _supposed_ to remember?" I asked.

Jacob braked abruptly. "I think I saw a diner," he murmured, once again dodging my question.

I huffed and puffed _—_ it seemed as if all we've been doing ever since with left Forks was: drive, eat in greasy diners, and sleep in cheap motels.

"Here we are," he said, obviously satisfied with himself, as he parked the truck in front of yet another highway diner.

"Okay. Explain yourself," I demanded, after we settled in a cube.

"You've figured it out, haven't you?"

"Jacob, quit joking, seriously," I told him. "Is it drugs?" I knew it, even before Jacob broke out in loud, borderline hysterical laughter, that I was wrong. "Stop it," I hissed. "All I remember is those . . . _stupid_ stories about the —" I swallowed a lump in my throat. "— _cold ones_. Tell me, Jacob. How does that make any sense?"

He smirked at me. "You've never been a good liar, Bells," he remarked casually.

"What on earth is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, I don't know —"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Jacob!" I moaned. I noticed a waitress staring at us in amusement — the coffee she was pouring in a ceramic mug was spilling all over the counter. "Are we seriously going to do this again?"

Jacob sighed in defeat. "Tell me. What do you remember?" he asked.

"I told you. The story about the cold ones —"

"And?"

"And that part about your ancestors." I remembered Jacob's disbelief when he had told me about the "wolves that turn into men", the mockery in his voice. He didn't take these stories seriously.

"What _about_ my ancestors?" he urged.

"They were . . . _werewolves._ " I said, making little quotation marks with my fingers.

The corners of Jacob's lips turned up ever so slightly. "Took you _that_ long to figure out."

I figured _what_ out? I frowned, waiting for an explanation. He didn't give me one. Instead, he smirked. So, I repeated the word, as if it would make more sense the second time around. "Werewolves."

And then it _did_.

The wolves. The huge, multihued wolves at the meadow. Wolves that scared vampires. Jacob, Embry, and the rest of the Quileute boys growing inches overnight.

"Werewolves," I gasped for the third time, and, to my surprise, the word felt right. More right than my other theories, at least.

There had never been a cult, or a gang. I suppose, I shouldn't be so surprised at this turn of events. If vampires were real . . .

Vampires.

The blood drained from my face. Suddenly I saw Jacob's cryptic comments and masked accusations under a new light.

"Werewolves. _Werewolves_?" Jacob nodded, his expression still one of amusement. "In _Forks_?" My voice came out in a choked snort.

Werewolves in Forks. Who would have thought . . . A tiny, insignificant town; a dot on the map . . . home of mythical monsters. Did this mean every impossible fairy tale was grounded somewhere in absolute truth? Was there anything sane or normal at all, or was everything just magic and ghost stories?

"Well, it was the Quileutes that did this first, as far as I'm concerned," he allowed. "But, really, the werewolf gene kicks in only when _. . ._ when a _vampire_ —" He spat the word, fury and disgust mingling in his voice. "— is in our lands."

"Vampire?" I croaked. He couldn't be referring to the Cullens. After all, according to his scary story from all that time ago, the Cullens made a truce with Jacob's great-grandfather, the _Alpha_. It couldn't be them. As much as I desperately wished it was, it couldn't be.

There was only one plausible answer.

_Victoria._

The name of the redheaded vampire, James' partner, hungry for revenge, thirsty for my blood, burst into my mind, and I was glad I was sitting, because my feet wouldn't be able to hold me.

"Yes, Bella," Jacob asserted. "A vampire. We're not the only monsters in existence and you damn well know that."

Monsters.

This was too much.

Jacob was a monster. A murderer. My instincts had driven me to run — run away from Forks, to protect him from whatever Sam's gang had been doing to him. And all this time, _he_ had been the culprit behind the mysterious disappearances and subsequent murders in the woods. He didn't need to be saved.

I recoiled at the thought.

"And I suppose you feel proud of yourselves."

Jacob's face became an unreadable mask. " _What?_ What are you talking about, Bella?" he asked.

"You're — You are _monsters_."

"Oh." Jacob just stared at me, eyes wide open, his mouth forming the shape of an 'o'. "Are you seriously listening to yourself?"

" _Me_ — ?"

" _I_ 'm the monster? God, you're such a hypocrite, Bella. You worshiped those bloodsuckers, but _we_ are the bad guys, huh?" His frame began to quiver.

Anger, thick and hot, clouded my thoughts. How dared he compare the atrocities he and Sam's _pack_ had committed to Carlisle and his family's refusal to take away human life? And he called _me_ a hypocrite?

My voice was pale with revulsion when I spat, "What you've been doing to these people . . . It was _you_! You, all along! And you act like this is a _Guess what I am_ game!"

Jacob straightened up with a jerk. "Bella, we're not killers," he said, a smile breaking across his face. The words took a moment to register.

"You're _—_ You're not? Then who _—_?"

"I told you; vampires. Oh, c'mon, Bells. I _know_ about the Cullens. It surprises me that you are so smitten with those _bloodsuckers_ , though, while you don't hesitate — not for a moment _—_ to assume that _we_ are the killers _. We_ , when our purpose is to _protect_ people _from_ them."

 _Edward, Edward, Edward._ The name tore through my unhealed wounds like a serrated knife. "But they're different, Jacob. They're _. . . civilized_ ," I offered.

" _They_ may be," Jacob amended. "But the leech we're hunting isn't. The other one, the one with the dreadlocks, wasn't either."

_Laurent._

_Was_ n't.

" _You_ killed Laurent?" I uttered in shock.

"Laurent? That was his name?" An involuntary shiver ran down my spine at the memory of my near-death experience. "Well, anyhow, it was team work."

Laurent. Dead. _Huh._

"So, I suppose you don't mind me morphing into a giant dog," he mused.

"Nope," I said, popping the 'p'. "Though, I would probably have appreciated it more if you hadn't been a cryptic jerk to me. Besides, I'm good with weird."

"Are — Are you ready to order?" a shaky voice called from behind me. I turned around to see a young waitress fiddling with her pen. She must have noticed the whole ordeal, though I highly doubted much of what we said made any sense to her.

"Sure," Jacob said with a grin that made her blush. "Um, an omelette. Cheese omelette?" The girl nodded and scribbled on her notepad. "Pancakes, five. A glass of orange juice."

"You want maple syrup with the pancakes?"

"Sure."

"Hmph. Will that be all?" she asked, smacking her gum.

"Um . . . Bells?"

"I'll get a pancake, topped with maple syrup, and a glass of orange juice."

She thanked us with another smack of her gum. As soon as she disappeared behind a swinging door, I turned to Jacob with a smirk. "So, _that_ 's how you get away with making a pig out of yourself," I said with an exultant gesture of my fist.

"One of the benefits of being able to morph into a giant, hairy dog," he chuckled.

The approaching echo of the waitress' heels on the floor startled us. I leaned in towards Jacob. "We'll talk about all of this _later_ ," I whispered in a haste. "And, this time, I demand clear answers."


	3. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Problem: While editing this chapter, I started seeing colorful lights floating around me — like Bella. Needless to say, there were no lights. The Solution: I will probably have my brother take over the computer. That will stop the headaches. And the notebook where I write the early drafts of my fics? Tinder.

_when you step outside / you spend life fighting for your sanity_  
Janelle Monae, "Cold War" _ _ _  
___

"And you just _. . . phased_?" My voice came out in a choked inquiry. "In front of Billy? _Inside_ the house?"

Jacob shrugged. "Guess I was lucky he knew, then."

"Holy crow," I breathed. The thought of him transforming into a wolf twice his size — and he was already big enough — was at least comical. "Though, I would probably be pissed off if my father had hidden such a big part of who I am from me."

"He _had_ told me, though," he corrected. "Kind of. I just had chosen to ignore it, pass it off as some . . . horror story." A chuckle.

A horror story. Wasn't all of this supposed to be a horror story, from the outset? Shouldn't vampires and werewolves be the figment of a whimsical storyteller's imagination?

"I wish I'd seen this . . ."

"Well, you have, technically." I raised an eyebrow. "In the meadow?"

"Oh." The monstrous formation of gargantuan mutant wolfs — _werewolves_ , I corrected myself — sprang to mind, and I bristled. "I was so worried about you," I muttered, changing the subject.

"Well, it's not like I didn't want to call you. _God_ , how I wish Sam would let me, but —"

"Wait," I interjected. " _Sam_ is responsible for this?" My blood boiled at the sound of his name. Jacob could purge him of all responsibility, but, in my mind, _he_ was to blame for the sudden loss of the boy my best friend had once been. I was even willing to overlook the Cullens' role, too. _They_ hadn't taken him away from me — Sam had.

"Don't blame him, Bella," Jacob implored. "He couldn't have done differently. We — werewolves — are dangerous creatures when we can't control ourselves. Anger works as a trigger. If I lose my temper, I snap," he explained.

And then I remembered. Yesterday, in the car, while we were driving. I had demanded he told me what was going on and he had started _shaking_.

As though he was hearing my thoughts, he continued, "It almost happened yesterday."

I shook my head. "Nothing happened, Jake."

He wasn't listening to me, though. His voice was small when he continued, "Sam will never stop blaming himself for what happened to Emily . . ."

"Sam? What about him?" I queried, curiosity sparking inside me.

"He lost control with Emily — his girlfriend," Jacob begrudgingly explained. "He scarred her real bad."

"That's terrible," I murmured, unsure of what else to say.

We drove in silence for a while. I tried to digest what I had learned so far.

Jacob was a werewolf. A member of a _pack_ of werewolves. Sam was his Alpha. He could _never_ defy his Alpha. _I_ made him defy his Alpha.

Werewolves had one enemy. _Only_ one.

Vampires.

"So . . . you said you were hunting someone, a vampire," I heard myself say.

Jacob nodded. "Yeah. The black-haired leech was strong, but not as fast. This one keeps getting away. When we're _this_ close to getting her, she crosses the line to _their_ land."

"So?"

"We can't transform on their land," he explained. "The truce between my great-grandfather and the Cullens forbids us to. As it forbids _them_ to set foot in _our_ land."

"But the Cullens aren't here."

"We just can't, Bella. It's pack politics, or whatever," he sneered, obviously disagreeing with this designation. I could tell there was nothing he would like more than to tear that vampire into pieces.

"So, who is it?" I whispered. My traitorous mind gave me memories of topaz eyes and piano melodies, strong arms and blissful summer days.

Yet, the stiff voice of my reason kept screaming one name.

 _Victoria_ _._

"I don't know," he said. "All I know is that she has red hair and she's fast as hell." My breath hitched in my throat and the cab suddenly became claustrophobic; the air stifling, unbearable. Jacob instantly noticed my reaction. "You know her? Is she one of the Cullens?"

"I know her," I murmured.

"And?" he asked hopefully. "Bella, this is important. Do you know what she wants?"

"She wants to kill me."

To say that the silence that followed was deafening is an understatement.

"She wants to _what_?" Jacob asked finally.

" _Well_ , Edward killed her . . . mate and she . . ." I shrugged. "Vampires tend to be very resentful. An eye for an eye," I explained. It was true — Victoria wanted a mate for a mate. The problem was that Edward didn't even _want_ me as his mate.

"And what about the other leech? What did Cullen do to _him_?"

"Vampires don't need a particular reason to kill you, do they?" I joked with chagrin.

"Will she follow us?"

"I don't know. I _hope_ not." Because if she did, not even Jacob would be able to do anything to avert my death. And this death would be far worse than Laurent's . . . _favor_.

"But . . . _why_ did Cullen kill her mate?" Jacob inquired, his voice tight.

"Well . . . Do you remember when I got hurt last year?"

Jacob nodded. "Yeah, you fell through a window . . ." he said, an edge of doubt in his voice.

"Not exactly." I smiled grimly. "James, Victoria's mate, is a hunter. He almost . . . Well, it doesn't matter — Edward killed him." The sound of his name caused a sharp burst of pain inside the hollowness of my chest.

Jacob squeezed his eyes shut, and his hands gripped the steering wheel.

"You're okay, though," he pressed.

"Yeah, well . . ." I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt to reveal the shiny half-moon where James had bitten me. I reminisced those few moments; the fire burning me from the inside as his venom flowed through my bloodstream. "I have this. As a souvenir," I jested feebly.

Jacob, panting for breath, glared at the barely visible scar.

"Are _you_ okay?" I asked reluctantly.

He inhaled deeply. "Yep." His lips pulled up at the corners. "So, I suppose our little road trip was just a desperate attempt on your part to save yourself, huh?"

"What? No! I didn't even think —" Where did _that_ come from?

"Relax, Bells," Jacob said casually. "I'm only kidding."

He stopped the car in an empty parking lot. "Don't worry," he seethed. "If she ever crosses our path, I will tear her apart."

I wouldn't call this an undesirable outcome.

* * *

Our trip to Walmart was a . . . lucrative one.

We were already beginning to run out of clean clothes and, I admit it, I would like some Pringles. And M&Ms, maybe.

When I told Jacob to make a detour on our way to the motel and stop at the Walmart in Carson City, he looked unsurprisingly excited.

I almost cried in relief at the sight of endless, chaotic aisles and "unprecedented" deals. Granted, I had never been a big fan of Walmart, but anything that didn't remind me of Forks was in my good books now.

Jacob mostly stood next to me, unsure of what to do.

"Just . . . go get some clothes, hmm?" I suggested, and he happily complied.

I picked up a couple of t-shirts myself, a hooded sweatshirt, a pair of sneakers and a few pairs of socks. Shampoo and other toiletries — razors, soap, tampons, and toothbrushes. Painkillers and lozenges. An extra backpack. A couple cans of Pringles and a bag of peanut-flavored M&Ms. A map _—_ something I ought to have considered long before. You can't travel across the states by car without one.

I reluctantly walked up to the Electronics section. There I got two prepaid cell phone bundles with a car charger and everything. Granted, they were essentially antiques, but it wasn't as if we had money to spare. I figured that cutting all strings of communication between me and Forks had a mistake ** _—_** and Jacob and I would need an alternative means of communication anyway.

I was thinking I should probably call Charlie sometime, when I met up with a very excited Jacob at the cashier.

"This is . . . I mean, I've been to the Walmart in Port Angeles, but this is _. . . grand_ ," he said in obvious astonishment. I couldn't help but chuckle. Who knew he'd be so excited? Over _Walmart_ of all things?

"Grand? _Grand?_ " I asked incredulously. " _Walmart_?"

"Oh, c'mon, Bells. I've never been outside of Washington . . . on _two_ legs," he said with a sly grin. "And I couldn't really get a good look at the landscape while I was hunting the —" he added, but abruptly paused and cast worried glances around him. As if a strange comment would stand out here.

"— evasive nuisance?" I finished for him. "And Walmart isn't a landscape."

I noticed Jacob glancing at the cell phones in my cart. "What are those?" he inquired.

"Just in case we're . . . you know separated or —"

"I'm _not_ leaving you," he interjected, looking hurt that I even dared to doubt his loyalty.

"I didn't insinuate you would _leave_ me," I averred. In fact, the possibility — the mere _thought_ — of that stabbed like a knife in my hollow chest. It terrified me and left me momentarily breathless. "Okay," I murmured. "What did you get?"

Jacob shrugged indifferently. "Just a few shirts," he said.

"And pants, hopefully."

"Pants, too."

* * *

I anxiously tapped my finger on the steering wheel.

"Did I forget anything?"

"Pants? Check," Jacob recited. "Razors? Check. Aftershave? Check. Unneeded cell phones? Double check."

"No, that's not it" A wave of realization washed over me as I remembered what it was that we'd forgotten. "Shit," I hissed as I slammed the brake with my heel. "Shit. _Shit!_ "

"Whoa there!"

"Did we get any food?"

Jacob stared at the road ahead of us. "Um. I got a couple of Snickers bars and," —he fumbled through the contents of the plastic bag on his feet— "a bag of Doritos."

"That doesn't count," I muttered tonelessly. "I mean _real_ food." I glared at my stomach. "Actually, I mean healthy food. Damn you and your wolf metabolism."

Jacob broke out into a boisterous laugh. "I thought you were above all of this."

"That changed when I realized I have higher content of grease in my system than the Chevy."

He snorted. I ignored him.

"Is there a turnip stand or something around here?" I mused as I made a left.

Jacob made a gagging sound.

* * *

My eyes instantly fell on the bag of BBQ-flavored Doritos in Jacob's lap. He raised an eyebrow.

"Want one?"

"Oh, what the hell."

"What happened to your diet?"

"I quit, okay?"

"Consistent. I like it."

I groaned as I dug my hand into the bag and brought a chip to my lips.

The notion didn't feel credible.

The reason was quite simple: it was too mundane an activity. You would think that with a psychotically elusive vampire on our tail and the web of the supernatural hovering ominously over our heads like Damocles' sword, we would be scrambling to flee — but where to? Still, a meager attempt at an escape would be significantly more effective than bantering and munching on Doritos in a motel room outside Denver.

Vampires and werewolves aside, I was preoccupied with another major issue; money.

I had already cleared out my savings account, but money was running out, and it was running out fast. I wouldn't bring myself to ask Charlie for cash, but something ought to be done about it.

I made a quick estimation — eighty-five dollars for the stuff we had bought, thirty for the motel room.

I stared into my wallet with a frown.

"One of us needs to get a job. Part-time, obviously, but the money won't last forever," I casually remarked in a tone that clearly connoted I meant: _You_ should probably work at a garage for sometime.

Jacob pursed his lips. "Only if we find a nice city," he compromised. "Because we will obviously have to stay there for more than a night. And, so far, none of them have been very appealing."

"Ugh, Jake," I grumbled. Okay. Change of subject. _Quick — find a neutral topic where he has to do all the talking._ "So . . . I've been wondering," I began. "How do you communicate with the others? Do you howl? Like in the movies?"

Jacob busted into loud guffaws.

"Yeah, and then we stand on our hind legs and run in the moonlight."

"I'm serious, Jacob," I scowled.

"Well . . . how do I begin to explain it? We . . . read each other's minds." I stared at him, perplexed.

"Does that mean you can . . . read —"

"What? Oh, no, no, no. Only the pack members' minds. It's great for when we attack as a group, not so much when everyone else knows what you . . . um . . ."

" _Oh_. Must have freaked you out, at first," I commented.

"Hearing Sam's voice in my head? It scared the shit out of me. I thought I was going insane!" I almost laughed with myself. If _he_ would call himself insane, what would he say of me? After all, hadn't I repeatedly taken the plunge, just to hear Edward's velvet voice warn me to stay safe?

"Yeah, I don't blame you," I muttered, avoiding his gaze.

Jacob said something, but I missed it. "Hmm?" I murmured.

"I'm thinking we should go out tonight," he repeated.

"Yeah, good idea."

* * *

The music was blaring through the speakers set near the ceiling, in the two corners behind the counter. It was a bit too loud for my taste, but it was distracting. Distractions were good.

It was a good night, customers-wise, at the decadent bar on the outskirts of the city. Okay, I would be the first to admit that bars weren't exactly my domain knowledge, but when money becomes an issue, you know your options for entertainment are limited.

Jacob's lips moved, uttering some kind of unintelligible sentence — I tilted my head to the side in confusion, pointing toward my ear.

"You want a beer?" he repeated, obviously making a staggering effort to keep himself audible over the loud thump of the music.

"I, uh . . ." I was ready to scold him on the underage drinking and all, but the second the melodic and gentle, if a little exasperated, voice whispered into my ear, "Bella, don't be foolish.", I nodded eagerly. It wasn't like I was riding a rickety motorcycle that could collapse at any moment. Or provoking a werewolf. Or almost being killed by a vampire. Twice. Or sinking into a near comatose state for four months. It was just underage drinking.

Jacob flashed a sunny grin and beckoned to the bartender.

The beer made me wince as it came in contact with my tongue. It was bitter, but at least it didn't leave me dizzy.

Apparently, though, my inexperience with alcohol was obvious. Jacob smirked at me before **—** the show-off ** _—_** gulped down at least half of the content of his bottle.

I suppose it was another one of those "wolf things".

"I can't believe they didn't ask for an ID," I said, striving to make my voice heard despite the bluster of the music.

"Do you think _I_ 'd get carded?" Jacob asked incredulously. "Please. And I suppose you could look around twenty-one. Take that however you like," he added with a smirk.

I groaned. I was sure Jacob's left-handed compliment wasn't meant to be snarky or ill-spirited, but it twinged. It once again reminded me of my mortality and of Edward's obsession with cherishing it, and I detested it.

"You'll drink that, Bells?" I looked at my still half-full bottle.

I squeamishly took a sip and was left with an unpleasant sensation in my throat. "It's disgusting, to be honest," I shouted. Still, the music covered my voice. "But you aren't going to have it." Jacob chuckled, and brought his own bottle to his mouth. "Does Billy know about this?" I scolded as he gulped down the last of his drink, though my lips were forming a smile.

"Please. His son turns into a giant dog-wolf and kills bloodsuckers. I'm sure caring about underage drinking is pretty low in his list of priorities."

"Right." I snickered. "Charlie would probably need his shotgun if he were here," I said, absentmindedly fingering the lip of my bottle.

"No problem. I can take a bullet," he japed, sneakily reaching out to it.

"Jacob Black, this is _not_ funny! And give me my beer back!"

* * *

Dots. Tiny, colorful dots swirled and floated around me, clouding my vision.

"Okay, Bells. I think we oughta go back to the motel —"

A hot, strong arm gripped my wrist.

"Wait, wait." Jacob cast an exasperated look at me. "I like this song," I protested, childishly crossing my arms over my chest.

"Seriously —"

"And I'm _HERE_ TO REMIND YOU OF THE MESS YOU MADE WHEN YOU WENT AWAY —"

"Jesus, you had _one_ beer and a shot of tequila. Obviously, you can't handle your liquor."

"— IT'S NOT _FAIR_ TO DENY ME — I'm sorry I'm not a —" My voice lowered to a whisper. "— _werewolf_."

"Time to go, Alanis. Before you start —"

"Jacob Black," I drawled out, pointing almost accusingly a finger at his face, "screw. _You_."

"And you scolded _me_ for drinking. Let's _go_ ," his deep voice boomed as he gently urged me forward.

* * *

"You need to go back," the angel's dulcet voice implored.

"No," I croaked.

"Your father needs you, Bella," Edward insisted, his flawless face wincing at my refusal.

"He can take care of himself."

"Don't be so stubborn," he scoffed. "You need to go back, Bella," he repeated, the tone of his voice more pleading now. "You can't be safe _—_ not without me," he murmured and the pitying look that twisted his sharp, chiseled features irked me more.

It reminded me of my inadequacy, of my frailty, of my _mortality_.

"Then _why_ did you leave me, Edward?" I tried to demand, but the words stuck in my throat.

Edward offered a bleak smile —

— and the topaz of the angel's eyes turned to ruby.

I forced my eyelids open.

_Edward, Edward, Edward._

I curled myself into a fetal position. The hole in my chest was throbbing in pain again.

These last few days the feeling had slightly subsided, only to return with even greater force tonight. The nightmares had returned as well.

The ache in my chest was the least of my problems today, though, for a change.

My head was pounding. My stomach was churning.

A weak, grey light was glowing dully through the window. Jacob's bed was empty — I assumed he had gone out to phase again, but I soon noticed the beam of light emerging from the crack under the bathroom door.

With a sigh of resignation I leaned my back against the headboard.

_Sam Uley._

I didn't care what Jacob said about him — when we returned to Forks, I would plant my fist in his face.

I turned on the TV and idly flicked through the channels. After a few minutes, I set the remote aside — the TV was now showing a short, tan woman with bleached blond hair, screaming incoherent obscenities into her phone. The scene that followed was akin to the one that had preceded it; the blond woman is replaced by a brunette with long, sleek hair and puffy lips.

I groaned, but I didn't turn it off. There was something amusing — and oddly relieving _—_ about other people's personal "hardships".

How invigorating, really.

I was about to doze off, when I heard the _creak_ of the bathroom door opening. Jacob, in nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist, emerged, a head towel in his hands.

"You're awake," he remarked.

I nodded flaccidly. "And you are half naked." The words slipped from my mouth before I thought them through.

"Does my being half naked bother you?" he inquired teasingly. I rolled my eyes. "What are you watching there?" he asked, throwing the towel over his shoulder.

"Some reality show," I murmured. "You missed the best part; Tiffany and Britney were arguing over Shawn."

"How fascinating."

"Not really."

"Okay then. Since you are awake, you might want to hear what I have to tell you."

I raised my gaze to meet his. Being used to the secretiveness and cryptic remarks of the past few days — and the weeks before — I was surprised by his readiness to disclose information. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and arched my eyebrow in fake astonishment.

"Alert the presses — Jacob Black is willingly revealing something," I muttered sarcastically.

Jacob huffed. "Do you want to hear this or not?"

I suppressed a sigh. "Fine, whatever."

"Embry said that the Cullens are back."

During the long silence that followed his unexpected pronouncement, I began to feel the warming tickle of hope around the edges of my heart. My face was blank, though, almost lackadaisical, when I asked, "Did you phase?"

"Yep."

"In Forks?"

He blinked. "Idaho."

"When you say that the Cullens have returned, do you mean all of them?"

"Not that I know of. Embry only saw two. A male and a female," he replied. "Not _your_ Cullen," he hastily added with a sneer.

"Oh," I whispered, lowering myself further onto the bed. "Did Sam speak with them?"

"Are you kidding me? Like he would talk to these leeches," he countered. "What do they want anyway? I thought they had left Forks for good."

"Yeah, me too," I mumbled, trying to ignore the nausea that intensified inside me. I hesitated, then added, "What do you think they want there?"

Jacob shrugged. "Who knows? All I know is that the female enrolled back to high school," he said.

"So, they're staying."

"I guess so. Why do you care, anyway?"

"I don't. I'm just curious."

I barely made it to the bathroom before I threw up.

* * *

Breakfast was a tense affair. Even Jacob seemed to have lost his ever unappeased appetite.

"Where should we go next?" he asked eventually.

I cast an absent glance at the highway — an impressive yellow car vanished as swiftly as it had appeared. My thoughts wondered momentarily to Edward's silver Volvo. "I kind of want to go to Louisiana," I suggested nonchalantly.

"Louisiana it is, then."

The truth was that I didn't care much about Louisiana; I had just opted for a place that would be a stark contradiction to Forks. New Orleans was a beautiful city, from what I'd heard, but it was the least of my concerns now, with everything that was going on: Victoria wanted me dead. Jacob was a werewolf. The Cullens were back. Worries had began to pile up when I had hoped we could just escape them. So far, no such luck with this plan.

"What do they want, Jacob?" I inquired, unable to keep my thoughts to myself anymore.

He shrugged. "I don't know. And you shouldn't maintain false hopes that they came back for you. The thing is, they are here, and that means that it won't stop."

"What won't stop?"

"The transformations. The reason the werewolf gene is triggered is vampire presence," he explained.

"I know that —"

"Now that there are more vampires in Forks," he interrupted, "more kids will start phasing. Do you know Seth Clearwater? He is not even fifteen yet. He could be next."

This didn't make any sense. The Cullens had lived in Forks for years — long before I had exiled myself there. "But the Cullens came to Forks years ago," I told him. "The transformations started relatively recently, right?"

Jacob shook his head. "You don't get it, Bella. _They_ triggered the gene." I cast a puzzled glance at him. His explanation was completely unambiguous, but somehow my brain rejected the words — and what they implied. Jacob sighed. "They don't have to do anything; just exist. Sam had turned long before any of us did. When the Cullens left, we thought it would stop — except it didn't. The redheaded leech came to town, and we didn't have a treaty with _that_ one. She freely roamed our lands and killed people . . . Now, the Cullens are back, which only makes matters worse," he elucidated.

I still didn't think I had completely grasped the cause of the phasings, but I didn't question him further. The point was that more kids like Jacob would have their lives and their carelessness drained out of them — and the Cullens were partly to blame for that.

I stared absently at the array of bright yellow cupboards behind the red counter. The soft tap on my shoulder caused me to jerk in surprise.

"Excuse me," a voice called. I turned around to face a young waitress. Her hand was trembling slightly as she handed me a neat, white envelope. "This is for you."

"M — Me?"

The waitress nodded.

I ripped the flap, casting a curious glance at Jacob — his eyes had turned into slits, and his nose was wrinkled, as though he smelled something revolting.

The elegant handwriting. The subtle but distinct scent that stemmed from the paper — like a perfume, but natural. The signature at the bottom.

My heart stopped. Or it started to beat faster.

These were its two reactions when it came to the Cullens.

_Bella _ _—___

_You must return to Forks _ _—__ it's imperative.  
I am worried about you. Your future is very  
blurry. It must have something to do with  
the wolf you have with you.  
Trust me on this, you are in grave danger.  
Please come back __—__ you will be safer here. _  
__

_Love, Alice_

_PS. We've all missed you so much._

The sound of Jacob swearing under his breath was drowned by my erratic heartbeat.

"It's from Alice," I murmured, crumpling up the sheet. "She's probably the one Embry saw. The other one must have been Jasper then."

Jacob snorted. It was his own way of saying, "I don't give a damn."

"She says I'm in danger," I continued, looking up to see his reaction.

This instantly captured Jacob's attention. "What? Why?"

"I don't know," I said, a surge of panic suddenly rising inside me. "She wrote that she can't see my future. But . . . she _must_ have seen something."

"And you trust her?" Jacob asked incredulously. "She's a damn bloodsucker, Bella. You can't trust them!"

My voice raised an octave when I angrily retorted, "They're _different_ , Jacob!"

"Oh, really? Because I thought that what vampires do is use you, manipulate your feelings and leave you broken — or _dead_ ," he grunted. His words left deep slashes in the hole in my chest — they hurt, because they were true. "Dammit, Bells," he moaned, when he realized the effect of his words.

"Don't," I managed to choke out.

"Okay, that's it. We're trading the truck."

"What? No, Jake —" I protested.

"What if it's that bloodsucker? _Victoria_." he spat out. "Look, I know you like the truck, but what is more important? Your life or a piece of rusty metal?"

I bit my lip, avoiding his gaze. I didn't know what to say. After all, who was it that had been ready to hand over their life for a vampire's love?

"She's a vampire, Jacob. It doesn't matter what we drive — she will find us. She will always find us," I insisted, a hint of desperation creeping into my voice.

"At least it will confuse her," he persisted.

I considered this for a moment and concluded that he _did_ have a point. Granted, our attempts at escaping would be no match for her powerful senses, but a change of vehicle would be at least disorienting.

"Fine," I concurred.

I tossed the creased piece of paper into a trashcan before we climbed onto the truck.

* * *

"Yeah, it's in pretty good condition for its age. I can give you six grand for it," Terry, a balding middle-aged man with a beer gut protruding from his wife-beater and the owner of the used cars lot, said after he evaluated the Chevy.

Jacob crossed his hands over his chest. "Seven," he haggled. "It's in _excellent_ condition, and all the components are brand new."

The man frowned. "Perhaps you'd like to see some of our other vehicles," he offered.

Jacob eyed him thoughtfully, knowing he had just failed to negotiate with him. "Sure," he conceded in resignation.  
"What models do you have?"

Terry trudged toward an array of antique cars.

"Well, over here we have a '62 Studebaker Pickup for eight grand," he said as he pointed toward a faded truck that might have once been coal black. "And that is a '66 GMC Pickup _—_ price is the same for that. A few Fords over here, in prime condition . . ."

I tuned out the rest of it. Aside from the obvious fact that cars were way beyond the grasp of my understanding, I wanted to clearly convey the message to Jacob: I didn't want to trade the truck.

"Our evasive nuisance," he reminded me, not oblivious to my umbrage.

* * *

"Jacob, I don't know how to say this, but I think we were ripped off," I remarked as the engine rumbled loudly for the _umpteenth_ time, and the "new" truck _finally_ started. "I thought you knew about cars."

"It was this or the Mercury Bobcat," he rejoined, clearly offended that I had doubted his knowledge of anything with wheels. "Besides, the guy only offered six grand for the Chevy. This was the best option."

"Maybe you turning into a giant horse-sized wolf would change his mind. Or, you know — learned to dicker," I grumbled. Jacob snickered.

I let out a groan as I leaned against the backrest. The seats in this car — a beat-up, faded-blue 1960 Dodge Pickup, if I recalled correctly — were leather and scorching hot from the blistering heat. It was similar to the Chevy in many respects: ancient and would probably do just as great in a collision, but, for some unfathomable reason, I detested it.

My eyelids were heavy when all hell broke loose.

"SHOT THROUGH THE HEART, AND YOU'RE TO BLAME —" I jolted in my seat and gaped in shock as Jacob, not fazed in the least bit, sang (or, rather, _butchered_ ), "— darlin', you give lo-ove a bad name."

"Hi, Jacob?" He turned to me, an innocent expression on his flushed face. "What on earth are you doing?" I asked in disbelief.

"Trying to cheer you up," he said innocuously, "and failing, apparently."

I assumed he had been anticipating some sort of good-natured praise _._ I don't know what he made out of my elbow in his ribs.

"Ow!" he protested, rubbing his side.

"As if you felt anything, you — you _beast_!" I muttered, unable to suppress a smirk. His whole body trembled with laughter as he playfully pinched my arm.

"I didn't say anything yesterday, when you ruined that Alanis Morissette song," he retorted, as another roll of laughter shook through him.

"Please focus on the road," I implored. My eyes fell on the car stereo. "We have a radio for entertainment." I jabbed at the buttons in frustration, to no avail. "How does this thing turn on?" After a few futile attempts, I gave up.

"Obviously, we don't." Jacob leaned forward. "Yeah, I think you'll have to settle for my lovely singing voice," he snickered.

"At least the Chevy had a radio that _worked_ ," I murmured, not daring to mention it had been a gift from Emmett Cullen for my eighteenth birthday. Jacob clutched at the wheel, a smile still playing at the corners of his lips.

But I knew he was not as cheerful as he would like me to believe. I knew it, because I was scared out of my mind as well.

Alice's note had left a bittersweet taste in my mouth; the Cullens were back _—_ not all of them, but still _—_ and they _cared_. But I was in danger according to her. She couldn't see my future now that I was with Jacob, so I had to assume she had seen Victoria's.

Alice's visions might not be entirely irrefutable, but intentions she could envisage. And, from the beginning, Victoria's intention had been to kill me.

Next to me, Jacob gripped the steering wheel with enough force to jab it out of its socket and cursed under his breath.

"What is it?" I inquired. The sunny grin had been replaced by pursed lips and narrowed eyes. "What's going on?" I pressed, gripping his arm. Jacob flinched under my touch, and I instantly pulled away.

I got no answer. Instead, Jacob made a U-turn and drove into a byway. The asphalt turned into dirt, and the route developed into an uphill.

We were driving for ten minutes or so, when Jacob muttered something incoherent under his breath and abruptly slammed on the breaks. The tires screeched thunderously as the truck skidded to a halt.

"What the hell, Jacob?" I shouted, gripping the dashboard. He ignored me _—_ he was glaring at something in the distance. I veered my head towards the same direction to descry the cause of his ire.

I did.

I gasped in shock.


	4. Message

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to be clear: Horatio Caine is still a BAMF — Bella Swan simply has terrible taste in men. Fact checked and established.

_now i've freezing hands and bloodless veins / as numb as i've become_  
Neko Case, "I Wish I Was the Moon" _ _ _  
___

A man was waiting in the clearing.

I took in the tall frame with the wide, broad shoulders that was standing a few feet away. His bare chest was heaving, and his hands were clenched into fists. While his physique would indicate he was closer to Sam as far as age was concerned, I reckoned he was maybe a couple of years older than Jacob. Like Jacob, there was no way he could be considered a boy. He was big, muscular, and intimidating. That was not where the similarities ended, though.

My eyes fell on the tattoo on his russet bicep.

This man was a werewolf.

"Stay _inside_ ," Jacob instructed as he slammed the car door shut.

I stared at the empty driver seat in disbelief for a moment, before I decided to ignore him, and clambered out of the truck.

I could tell from the get go that it was not a friendly meeting.

"What do you want here, Paul?" Jacob spat furiously.

"What the fuck are _you_ doing here, Black?" the man, whose name was apparently Paul, snarled in response. Now that I remembered, Jacob had mentioned him to me — he had joined Sam's pack relatively early on, and he was trouble. Paul's eyes lit on me. "With this _leech-lover_."

I gulped audibly.

"Shut the _fuck_ up —"

"Does she know what you are? I bet she does," Paul snorted. He raked me up and down with his dark eyes, not bothering to hide his contempt. "I bet that's why she's so fond of you. I bet she digs screwing monsters —"

"I swear, one more word and —"

"How does it feel to fuck the sloppy seconds of a bloodsucker?"

"That's it!" Jacob barked, striving to allay the quaver that had taken over his body. I knew what it meant, the outline of his body that seemed to blur around the edges. It prolonged an imminent transformation.

In an instant, he was sprinting, straight for Paul, who didn't even flinch.

"C'mon, Black. Bring it on. I _dare_ you," he hissed, baring his teeth. A snarl ripped from between Jacob's lips.

A fraction of a second later, they were gone — it was almost as though their bodies had exploded, releasing a behemothic shape from their insides.

Sure enough, in their places, stood two wolves, two _gigantic_ wolves; one russet-brown and one grey, viciously growling at each other, prepared to charge.

I remembered what had happened to Laurent. Well, I could only assume the specifics, but I knew for a fact that Jacob and the rest of Sam's pack had . . . ended him. Truth be told, being torn apart by wolves the size of horses, was well beyond the grasp of my imagination. It was too horrific to conceive.

Just then, they dashed forward, their gnarls and snarls ear-splitting. The gray one lunged for the other's neck _—_

— the russet-brown one leaped to the left, narrowly avoiding the keen fangs of his opponent. The other bared his teeth, a low growl escaping his throat.

Jacob — the copper wolf, as I assumed — scraped the dirt with his forefoot. Determination and something else I couldn't define flashed through his brown eyes. His hind legs thrust him forward, and he was pelting, fury radiating from him. Paul indolently dodged the attack. Momentum caught up with Jacob, and Paul slammed into him, darting him to the ground.

"Stop! Just . . . _please_ ," I besought. Jacob turned to face me and, without hesitation, disappeared behind the thick foliage of a clump. Paul, on the other hand, held his ground — with an inward breath, he phased back to human form. I realized with a gasp of shock that he was stark naked. Then again, he _had_ torn his clothes apart when he had transformed into a monstrous wolf, so I doubted he had a choice. As far I as I was concerned, he appeared to be actually getting a kick out of my discomfort.

I turned my gaze to the scaly, light green needles of a nearby spruce.

"So, I guess the wolf is finally out of the bag, huh?" The sound of Paul's voice caused me to jerk in shock. It tickled inside my ear, as if someone had uttered the words mere inches from my face. Sure enough, he was towering over me, his dark eyes studying my face.

"I already knew. So, no," I replied dryly, retreating from his burning stare.

Paul smiled wryly. "I don't suppose you have an extra pair of pants."

I cast a reluctant glance at Jacob _—_ well, the tree in _front_ of Jacob. I headed back to the truck and found the backpack where Jacob kept the clothes we'd bought yesterday — I fished out a pair of denim cut-off shorts.

" _You_ can go back on all fours," I snapped at Paul. "Hey, Jake? I brought you pants." I tentatively set the shorts on the ground, beside the trunk of the tree, and backed away.

"You can beat it now, Paul," I informed him through gritted teeth, feeling a sudden, inexplicable surge of confidence that mingled with my anger. He snickered, and I glowered at him. "Do you find this amusing?"

"I have orders, Swan," he interjected. My throat convulsed with a rough swallow, and I recoiled with a shudder. "This is bigger than your little road trip."

"I'm not coming back, Paul," Jacob said, emerging from behind the trunk.

"Sam's orders —"

"I don't give a _damn_ about Sam's orders," he shouted. "He could fuck off, for all I care."

"Look at you, defying your Alpha, renouncing your tribe, your brothers . . . all for a leech-lover. Pathetic." Jacob had already turned his back to him, when he added ominously, "The bloodsucker's coming." In an instant he exploded into an enormous grey wolf, and, soon enough, he was out of sight.

His words repeated themselves in my head.

"She's coming?" I croaked, terror leaving me numb and light-headed. "Victoria is coming?"

"We have to get the hell out of here," Jacob, who had frozen in his place, said and hastily climbed into the cab. "Get in!"

I complied mechanically.

He cast a worried glance at me.

"Don't worry, Bells. She doesn't know where we are, nor where we're planning to go." I shook my head.

"She's a vampire, Jacob," I said. "She may not be as good a tracker as James, but she's still a _vampire_. She's fast and she's strong, and . . ." I heard Jacob cuss in a low, indistinct voice. "I think we should return to Forks."

"Not yet," he interjected.

"So, where are we heading next?"

"Louisiana," he said with a smirk. "You said you wanted to go there. I just don't think we'll have time to properly appreciate it."

"Uh-huh."

* * *

My new cell phone vibrated against the nightstand with a rattling buzz. I picked it up — the faint glow of the numbers _0:32_ was visible on the screen.

My fingers froze as I pressed the _Ok_ button. The only people who know this number were Jacob and I.

I cast a wary glance at Jacob laying in his bed. Obviously, it hadn't been him.

The message read: _Sorry, I had to._ What was that supposed to mean?

Sender: Unknown.

I was wearily typing: _I think you've got the wrong number_ , when it started vibrating again.

"Isabella Marie Swan _, I've been worried out of my mind, dammit!_ " a very angry Charlie hollered at lightning speed in my ear.

"Dad?" I jabbered.

" _And Billy won't talk to me . . . I'm telling you, something's going on in the reservation_ . . . _What were you two thinking?_ "

"Dad . . ."

" _And that Uley kid, he's pissed at you. I don't know why — did you do something to him?_ "

"Let me tell you —"

" _Thank God for Alice Cullen . . . I didn't know you were still in contact with her after the Dr. Cullen and his family returned to Forks._ "

Alice. Of course.

"Dad? Hey, Dad. Don't worry. We're both fine and I . . ." I blinked. _What did he say?_ ". . . 've got my pepper spray," I faltered.

" _Your_ _. . . Your_ pepper _spray_ ," Charlie mumbled weakly.

"Wait, did you say the Cullens are back? All of them?"

" _I think so, at least. Dr. Cullen just started working again yesterday and I swear I saw that nancy brat, Edward Cullen. That son of a_ —"

My breath caught in my throat; I couldn't have heard right.

Was it possible that Charlie had been wrong?

Quil had told Jacob he _hadn't_ seen " _my_ Cullen", but could I trust him? Could I trust _Jacob_ on this? He never hid his hatred for vampires — or the Cullens, for that matter. I doubted he would want me to be near a "bloodsucking leech". Concealing part of the truth from me and still telling me about the Cullens' return would, in his mind, quench any remains of hope I maintained for Edward and me.

"Edward is in Forks?" I managed to choke out.

" _Why do you care about where_ he _is?_ " Charlie demanded.

"I — I don't," I murmured in resignation. "How's Billy?"

" _Oh, so_ now _you care_ ," was Charlie's snarky response.

"Dad —"

" _He's holding up alright. Sue is taking good care of_ _him. Harry and I help, too._ "

I heaved a sigh of relief. "Dad, it's late. We'll talk about it tomorrow. And . . . stay away from the shotgun," I implored.

" _If you're not back by_ yesterday _, I will — Wait, late? It's ten thirty. Where on earth are you?_ "

"Um . . . Baton Rouge?" I stammered out.

" _Ba — Baton Rouge? In_ Louisiana?" Charlie thundered.

". . ."

" _Isabella Marie Swan._ " Full name: check. Stern intonation: check.

"Yeah."

" _I'm waiting,_ " he said impatiently, his voice dead serious. " _I want to know_ what _on earth you are doing in Baton Rouge._ "

"I like the swamps," I replied in what was supposed to sound like a quip. Instead, my voice left my mouth lifeless and bleak.

" _Humor your old man, Bells._ "

There was something about the tone of his voice — it no longer sounded demanding, or disgruntled, or disapproving. It sounded resigned. Not in a way that would suggest he didn't care, but, rather, completely lacking any surprise.

"If it's school you're worried about, I'll be back before graduation," I said, biting my lip in a reflex move. Of course, I didn't mention the fact that it wouldn't matter anyway, since I had spent much of my senior year apathetically mourning over Edward's leaving me, and being caught up in a world of vampires thirsting for my blood and werewolves hellbent on killing aforementioned vampires.

" _Honestly, Bells, I don't give a crap for school. I promise, if I did anything wrong, I'll try to . . ._ "

I bit my lip. "I promise, I'll be back," I said eventually.

" _Yeah, yeah. But . . ._ you _explain your mother why your grades are falling apart, and why you're going on road trips with_ _boys_ ," he grunted, uttering the last word with relish. He would probably enjoy my feeble attempts at explaining Renée the precise reason for I suddenly decided to send my tertiary education down the drain _—_ and what a certain teenage boy had to do with it.

"Great. You told Mom."

" _Heck yeah, I did._ "

"Crap."

I heard a low sigh from the other line. " _Just come home, 'kay?_ "

"Look, Dad . . . I'll call you back, okay?" I muttered, failing to ignore the twinge of guilt that had settled inside me.

" _Okay. Just . . . don't do anything stupid or reckless._ "

"I'm still Bella, Dad. Would I do anything stupid or reckless?" I asked, a hint of incredulity lacing the tone of my voice. Still, I almost cracked a smile at my obvious lie. Unless, of course, engaging in destructive, possibly self-injurious behavior had ceased to be _both_ stupid and reckless.

" _Anyhow, tell Jacob I'll have my shotgun when I see him again._ "

"I love you, Dad."

" _Love you too, Bells — but I'm serious._ "

I let out a sigh. "Dad? Goodnight."

I heard his muffled protests before I pressed the _End_ button and set the phone aside.

I knew I had been wrong to hung up like that, but one thought kept swirling inside my brain. One name, to be precise, repeated like a mantra, over and over and over.

_Edward, Edward, Edward._

I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours before I realized that I wouldn't be sleeping anytime soon. My mind was racing.

The Cullens were back in Forks. _Edward_ was back in Forks. The small, unwarranted part of my mind wondered whether he had come back for me. I shushed it bitterly. There were bigger things to worry about. Like my impending death.

Because Victoria knew I had left Forks, and she was coming for me.

The hole in my chest thrived on my despair.

* * *

In my dream, the forest buzzed alive with sounds.

A light breeze rustled the trees, and the chirping of birds filled the space.

An orange light rose behind my back.

The smile froze on my lips, when black nothingness took its place.

Now, the only light came from the pair of rubies before me.

* * *

I slumped my head against the pillow, giving up on the feeble hope that I would get some sleep.

Leaving Forks had always seemed like such an easy thing to do — in theory.

Apparently, leaving your family behind didn't require much contemplation when it came to . . . selflessness? Morality? I didn't know. What I did know was that every time I tried to protect someone I cared about, I ended up hurting Charlie.

The first time, it was him; I went to Phoenix to ensure _his_ safety.

Now, it was Jacob; my paralytic fear for Jacob's sanity drove me in Louisiana and God knows where else.

Would I be betraying Jacob, if I went back? Hadn't I betrayed my father enough?

I was thinking, maybe he _had_ been right after all, Jake. When I had suggested that we _left_ , had I meant it a long-term kind of way or had it been just a naive and impulsive decision — an act of desperation?

I hadn't really thought of how that decision would affect Charlie. I had only thought of myself, of how I would ensure Jacob would be away from whatever had morphed him into the boy that had confronted me in the rain an eternity ago. So that _I_ wouldn't lose him.

I pinched a strand of hair between my index and middle finger and realized it had a damp feeling to it. I assumed it was because I hadn't had a shower since our first morning on the road, and the humid subtropical climate of Louisiana was quite hard to adjust to after spending a year in rainy Forks. One would think that growing up in Phoenix postulates a certain tolerance to heat, but Louisiana can't really be described as _dry_.

Long story short: I needed to take a shower.

I rolled out of the bed and gazed absently across the empty room.

Where on earth was Jacob?

I decided he had gone out to phase — perhaps he would even return with more information on the Cullens' homecoming and that was certainly not something I would grumble about.

As I lifted my damp with sweat shirt over my head, I noted something odd — the stench of my perspiration mingled with another odor, one so familiar, yet so distant in my memory; the intoxicating scent of a vampire.

I shook my head. No, this _wasn't_ the scent of a vampire.

This was the incarnation of my wishful thinking.

* * *

The unmistakable smell of smoke greeted me when I emerged from the bathroom.

I wrinkled my nose. This wasn't any kind of smoke — as in, the smoke of seared paper or a small fire _._ It was the foul smell of a lit match mingled with the one of a burning cigarette.

I hated that smell.

After I pulled on a plain t-shirt, a jacket, and jeans, I hurriedly walked up to the door, following it. Upon taking a peek outside, I saw Jacob, his back facing me. One hand fell casually at his side — the other was bent in front of his face, like he was holding something on the level of his mouth. His shoulders squared as he inhaled deeply, then relaxed, when he exhaled a cloud of smoke that faded into the sky.

A moment passed, and the motion finally made sense.

"Jacob Black, _what_ do you think you're doing?" I asked, a bit louder than I had intended to.

Jacob threw a quick look over his shoulder. "Easing the stress," he allowed, flashing the ghost of one of his old sunny smiles.

I scurried toward him, tugged the box of matches from his hand, and slipped it into my jeans' pocket. "Well, you'd better find a better way to _ease the stress_ , because you won't be seeing your cancer-in-a-stick anytime soon," I spat out angrily.

Jacob nodded in waiver and set the pack of Marlboros on the rail of the porch. I snatched it, and stubbled toward a nearby trashcan. I looked daggers at him as I tossed it inside.

"Great. Anything else I need to know about Sam Uley?" I inquired, as I stomped back into the room. Jacob followed me.

"Do you actually believe that Sam made me start smoking?" he asked incredulously.

"I don't know about smoking, but he sure as hell is causing you all this stress you want to ease!" I retorted. Hot, salty drops pooled in my eyelids, and I wiped them off with the edge of my jacket. I was positive my cheeks had taken on the darkest shade of scarlet. Not so much out of embarrassment as out of tension.

Jacob sighed. "I don't expect you to understand," he finally offered.

"Then _help_ _me out_ , Jacob, because I can't seem to make any sense of . . . of . . . ," I faltered.

"Okay, okay," Jacob conceded. "I'm putting it out, see?"

He flicked the stick and crushed it under his boot.

"I'm sorry," I said, rubbing my forehead, as he raised a big arm to ruffle my hair. "I'm just a wreck with everything that's going on . . . Victoria and . . . Dad . . . ," I continued. Jacob tilted his head in confusion. "He called last night," I explained.

"He's pissed, isn't he?"

"Yep. Good thing you can take a bullet, then."

Jacob rolled his eyes. "Have you packed?" he asked.

* * *

New Orleans _,_ with its sounds and smells _,_ enraptured us.

We tried the local beignets, and the crawfish étouffée, and the cajun shrimps, and, even though it was only for a few hours, our worries merely hovered, instead of tormenting and afflicting us.

"I'm thinking . . . Florida," I said, after the second portion of cajun shrimp _—_ of which I had yet to have my fill. Well, that might have had something to do with Jacob's bizarre fascination with my plate and its contents.

"Like, Miami?" Jacob asked, raising his head from the seafood, the center of his attention for the last half hour or so.

"Yeah, I mean . . . there's more to Florida than Miami, but if it means so much —"

"Cool," he cut me off, nodding in contentment.

"Why are you so excited?" I inquired, perplexed. Who knew the idea of going to Miami would be so enthralling? After all, we had a vampire on our tail — and that vampire would love to make me her dinner. Sightseeing — or any sort of activity that involved calmness and any lack of concern for that matter — shouldn't be particularly high on our list of priorities.

"CSI, _duh_ ," Jacob said obviously, and, suddenly, the boy that had so quickly become a man turned into the teenager from the garage; the one with the shining eyes and the sunny smiles and the roundness on his cheeks. _My_ Jacob.

I, the grown-up, murmured indifferently, "Which one? The one where a smart-ass with sunglasses solves cases and talks funny?"

Jacob instantly got an offended expression. "Horatio Caine isn't a smart-ass; he's a fuckin' _genius_."

"Well, it doesn't show with all the atrocious acting," I retorted playfully.

Jacob scowled.

* * *

We drove for fourteen hours straight.

Jacob was in a suspiciously good mood; he didn't grunt when the Dodge didn't start until his fifth attempt and didn't wince when I told him that, should I catch him with a death-stick again, I would tell Charlie he was a bad influence, and, thus, shatter his hopes of ever being within a five mile radius from me.

"Okay," he drawled out. "Consider me warned."

"It's not funny," I snapped, my voice shrill and childish. "He'll never let me hang out with you again."

Jacob cast me an incredulous glance but didn't comment.

A Volvo drove past us. The rear door window was rolled down; a dog peeked out and stared at us gleefully, sticking its tongue out, its ears perked up.

"Does it . . . ?"

"Smell me?"

"Um . . ."

We sped past at least eight or nine diners and a McDonald's; Jacob whined about how I was making him starve to death. Of course, he conveniently forgot to mention that he had eaten enough food for an entire army in New Orleans — plus at least half of my own portion of cajun shrimps.

We passed by Jacksonville as fast as the beat-up Dodge allowed us. Guilt consumed me as I thought I should give Renée call and let her know that I was, you know, alive.

Eventually, we found a comparatively less greasy than usual motel on the outskirts of Orlando.

I bit my lip as Jacob asked for a room at the front desk.

"Singles or double?"

"Sin —"

"Double," I blurted out, cutting him off, and immediately felt my cheeks burn. A bright, sunny smile that I couldn't determine spread across Jacob's face.

"D'you want to go to the beach or something?" he suggested, eying me warily, after we settled into our room.

I lowered myself onto the bed — the mattress was too comfortable, the pillows too soft.

I replied with a yawn.

Only now did I realize my fatigue — the stress of the trip, my worry for Charlie, the rising surge of panic Victoria's grudge entails, and, of course, Edward's ubiquitous presence in my mind, all had overwhelmed me, both physically and mentally.

I groggily walked up to the blinds and shut them, eliminating the little light that was emerging into the room through them.

"You tired, huh?" Jacob asked. I nodded tonelessly. "Well, _Captain Obvious_ ," he murmured to himself, smacking his forehead. "Anyway, since you're not in the mood — I saw a McDonald's around a mile from here — I'm going to get something for us to eat, 'kay?"

My voice was weak but steady when I rasped, "Stay."

Jacob's eyes widened. "Okay." The bed shifted as it adjusted to his weight. I felt hot fingers knotting through mine. "Better now?"

"Very."

"Wanna talk?"

"I want to listen to you."

A warm hand moved to my hair, pulling matted strands from my eyes. "Want me to sing a song?"

". . ."

"Okay, I'm kidding. What do you want to listen?"

"I want to know more about the Pack."

"Seriously?"

"Uh-huh."

"But . . . _why_?"

"I want to know more about whatever it is that is so desperately trying to fend you off from me."

"Fair enough. Shoot."

"How did Sam become Alpha?"

"He's —" Jacob paused, as though the answer was on the tip of his tongue, just beyond the grasp of his memory. " — the oldest, I guess."

"He's, what, nineteen?"

"Twenty. Yeah, he was the first to phase, and he knows all there is to know about the tribe, the gene, the bloodsuckers . . ."

"Doesn't lineage play a part in that sort of thing, though?" I asked.

"I guess so . . . Dunno, I never wanted this in the first place. Any of it. If I had to deal with Paul and Leah, too, I'd kill myself."

"Leah?" I asked, tilting my head in confusion.

"Yeah. She's Sam's ex. They dated before he got together with Sam. I mean, it wasn't just a fling or anything — they were serious. Then Sam imprinted on Emily; and as if that wasn't enough, Emily's also Leah's cousin —"

"Am I supposed to know what imprinting is?" I interrupted. All that werewolf jargon was starting to baffle me.

"It's complicated," Jacob began. "It — It tells you who your soulmate is."

His reply was so matter-of-fact that he might as well have remarked on the weather.

"Like Google?" I mumbled lamely. Instinctively, I pictured a search engine where you could type your personal information, and ta-da! Here's your soulmate!

He chuckled. "Not really. It's more like . . . your world, it literally stops spinning. It's not about you anymore; it's about her — the imprint."

"Sounds like you know the feeling," I whispered.

Suddenly, a picture expanded behind my lids: Jacob and a girl from the reservation, running, frolicking at First Beach. He intertwined his fingers through her own, and he looked at her, and he had never looked at me that way. I realized I detested the phantom girl, and I detested _him_ _._

"Pack mind," he reminded me, dissolving the mental image I had conjured like a wave dissolves a drawing on the sand.

"Does the . . . _imprint_ even give you a choice?" I asked, a feeling of disgust slowly creeping up inside me. The Quileute boys had been deprived of their right to simply _be_ — now they were deprived of their free will, as well.

"Imprinting is just another way of getting your choices taken away from you," Jacob said, his voice barely audible.

* * *

I woke up to the uncomfortable feeling of wetness between my legs.

I rubbed my eyes as the room returned to my field of vision. A paper bag — from McDonald's, as the sign indicated — had been placed on my nightstand, next to my charging cell phone. Jacob was laying next to me, mere inches away, his snores ear-splitting, as per usual. An unfamiliar, inexplicable desire, lapped at my insides. Unconsciously, I placed my palm on his cheek. I allowed my hand to linger for a moment, to get accustomed to the newly-developed angles of his face.

He was more than sort of beautiful.

It was twelve thirty now; I had been sleeping for fifteen hours straight, and I was starving. I was eager to gorge myself — the tasteless cheeseburger would most definitely do very little to satisfy my hunger, but it would more than suffice. First, though, there were a few things I needed to take care of.

One of the parameters I hadn't taken into consideration was . . . well, _that_ time of the month. I had been so caught up over my selfishness and my unwillingness to let Jacob go, our "evasive nuisance" and the return of the Cullens, that mundane, trivial problems of everyday life — problems that, with the events of the past year still fresh in my memory, had lost their meaning and what little importance they held — that dealing with my menstrual cycle seemed like a Herculean task.

I was thinking I would have to make do with the _totally hygienic_ toilet roll, when it dawned on me that I _had_ stored a pack of tampons in my backpack. I fumbled through it and fished out a little blue box. Unfortunately, a tampon couldn't provide any relief for the crippling ache in my abdomen. Thankfully, I remembered the box of painkillers in the glove compartment of the Dodge.

Strenuously, I slipped my legs out of the bed and rose from the mattress. Light spring breeze grazed my face when I stepped out to the small porch — there was no sound, save for the soft _whoosh_ of the wind.

The parking lot was predictably devoid of both other vehicles and people at this time of the night. I was thinking I should go to the drug store first thing tomorrow morning, when the hiss registered. My head snapped toward the general direction of the sound.

"Jacob?" I called and took a few tentative steps forward.

Nothing.

I stalked toward the Dodge — my hand was on the car door knob, when the hiss recurred. There had been a shift — something was different, but I couldn't put my finger on it. My hand fumbled for the box of analgesics. It tightened around the pepper spray, instead. I drew a shaky breath —

— as something stone-hard hit the back of my head.

Before the world around me blurred and dissolved into darkness, I caught a glimpse of vibrant red hair.


	5. Memento Mori

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Memento Mori = Remember You Will Die
> 
> This is the part of the story where I had an epiphany and proceeded to scrap up my original outline for this chapter and onwards. As far as the idea for Victoria's portrayal is concerned, it stemmed mainly from James' tastes — he used to be fixated with Alice, who had been admitted to a mental asylum, and Victoria's unhealthy obsession with killing Bella to get back at Edward isn't exactly an indicator of sanity. Obviously, her gift for self-preservation had a lot to do with that, but it's my head-canon.

******WARNING: This chapter involves some explicit violence/torture.**

 

 _before i die alone / let me have vengeance_  
Zack Hemsey, "Vengeance"

 

Sometimes, I really, _really_ missed Phoenix and its predictability.

Until a year ago, I hadn't given much thought to how I would die. After two near-death experiences, though, I was bound to begin thinking otherwise. When you have faced death more than once, you learn to accept it. And, I suppose, when you give your life to protect those you love, it becomes even easier to embrace it.

The stench of scorched leather and burning tire filled the claustrophobic cab. A nostalgic melody rattled through the small stereo on the dashboard of the car.

My eyes wondered in the darkness until they met hers, staring straight into me from the rear-view mirror. Curls the color of incandescent copper enveloped her translucent face.

Her lips peeled back into a snarl.

I felt a sudden pinch on my arm, and the image eroded.

When my vision returned, murky shadows danced and floated around me, not helping with the haze and confusion in my head. Thousands of tiny needles prickled my arms and legs, and my back hurt as though I had spent the last few days curled up in a ball on a really uncomfortable couch.

Soft moonlight that flickered between the leaves added an eerie feeling to the already surreal scene.

A silhouette slowly materialized from the dense cover of trees — radiant, brilliant fire leaped out from its head, completely engulfing it.

"Oh, come on, Isabella Swan. Don't be such a woeful little weakling," a sheer, girlish voice — a voice that ought to belong to blond curls and pink bubblegum — cackled.

I propped myself up, resting my back on the trunk of a pine. I gingerly raised a hand to the back of my head, and, below my tangled mane, I felt a sizable knob where Victoria had hit me.

The vampire's dark eyes glinted in the darkness like onyxes, and her fiery locks contrasted against her ivory cheeks.

"Finally," Victoria said, her voice thrumming with satisfaction and anticipation.

"Where are we?" I asked, my voice cracking slightly.

"Oh, this shouldn't be of your concern, Isabella," Victoria hummed.

My eyes twiddled in their sockets as I became aware of my surroundings. We were in a clearing, illuminated only by the gleaming moonlight and the subtle shimmer of Victoria's skin. I took in the medium-sized trees with the long branches and shaggy barks that stretched around me — I recognized some as hickories — and the boulders that were scattered over the surface of the ground.

The air wasn't heavy with humidity; the edge of Victoria's silk blouse was fluttering in a chilly breeze that carried the smell of pine, and the leaves were rustling, disrupting the silence of the forest.

The only logical deduction was that I was no longer in Louisiana. Victoria, of course, was aware that I had been.

A wave of realization washed over me.

The vampire scent on my shirt hadn't been a delusion that had stemmed from my yearning for Edward; it had a remnant of Victoria's very presence inside my room.

_"At least it will confuse her."_

How ludicrous Jacob's persistence to trade the truck seemed now. Nothing — no distraction, no "maneuver"— could divert a vampire from whatever it was that they sought. Almost as if Victoria was reading my thoughts, she murmured pleasantly, "I must admit your vehicle switch disorientated me at first, but trying to fool a vampire? Tsk, tsk, tsk. I expected a smarter scheme." She coiled a fiery lock between her index and middle finger and continued, an edge of bitterness lacing her voice, "True, tracking is an ability few possess to its fullest, most potent effect, but hunting with James has proven to be rather . . . gainful." She parted her lips and allowed her tongue to trace the upper one as she murmured softly, "Besides, you smell _mouthwatering_."

How akin did her words sounded to Laurent's . . . In fact, the two situations were glaringly congruous — except, of course, Laurent's promise of a quick and painless death didn't apply here, and there were no wolves strong enough to kill a vampire here to save me from whatever twisted plan Victoria had laid down for me.

_No wolves . . . here . . .  
_

"Jacob," I choked out, cold despair burgeoning in my chest, as the shock of his absence hit me forcefully, and painfully distended the bleeding hole in my chest. "What did you do to him?" I cried out, my voice trembling with fury.

"Oh, is that the name you gave your flea bag? How cute," she jested. Sparing me a last glance of contempt, she turned to an undefined shape, whom I determined with a surge of relief to be Jacob. "Relax, relax. Your puppy is _right_ here." With a long, pale finger, she gestured vaguely toward him. "Jacob, Jacob . . . you've been such a nuisance," she scolded, but it wasn't hostile or threatening. It sounded like a mother chastising her child.

"Fuck off," he grunted.

"Anyway," she continued with a nonchalant wave of her hand, entirely disregarding Jacob's affront, "I probably ought to admire your lapdog over here. Do you know that he actually begged me to spare you? That he offered his own life? Willing to die to save you . . . I think he likes you. Too bad he lacks the basic wits to grasp the fact that I couldn't care less about _him_ , isn't it?"

Her unmasked derision caused something inside me to snap, much like a string overly pulled, and, somehow, I found myself on my hands and knees.

A fallen branch caught my attention _ _ _ _;____ as I dragged myself closer to it, I realized its surface was covered in small thorns. Nothing could possibly stand in the way of a vampire — except maybe another vampire, or a pack of angry werewolves — but it wasn't a weapon I was looking for. Rather, it was a distraction.

I gripped the branch with both hands, striving to ignore the sensation of its thorns prickling into my flesh.

My ungraceful steps caused twigs to snap beneath my sneakers. Victoria jerked at the sound and whirled toward me. Her coal black eyes trained on me in amusement.

I tightened my palm around the branch and was prepared to raise it, when Victoria's shape _blurred_. Before I got the chance to blink, she was standing in front of me.

"You know, you shouldn't have done that," she said softly, her frigid fingers gently stroking my face. "Not that I wouldn't snap your neck and sink my teeth in your flesh to taste that sweet blood of yours that so fascinated James," she continued, shaking her head. "But . . . I would have shown mercy to your little friend." She flashed a mischievous grin. " _Maybe_." Her hand moved to my chest, and, with a swift move, she effortlessly slammed me against the trunk of a pine tree. The impact sent a shower of pine needles down on my head.

"Bella! _Bella!_ "

"Oh, hush, you tyke. She's fine. Just a little scratch. Isn't that right, Isabella?"

"Shut your filthy mouth," Jacob spat.

"Tsk, tsk. No manners." A friendly smile spread across her angelic face. "Anyway, where was I? Oh, I remember! After I knocked you down, I waited for him. And I _don't_ appreciate waiting. You'd think that, with his dog senses, he would have already picked up my smell, but _alas_!" She shot Jacob a disapproving look. "An eternity later, more or less," she bantered, "he finally figured it _all_ out." I winced as I realize she was only being sarcastic. "It didn't take much convincing for him to comply with me. Your life seems to be his only priority. How . . . altruistic of him. Though, to be frank, I would much sooner he had displayed some . . . spunk. A sniveling teenager and an unconscious hostage can spark my interest for so long."

"Yeah, we apologize for not being sufficient pawns for your twisted little game," Jacob retorted, his chest heaving as he toiled to keep his temper under control.

"Well, I _did_ tell him that if he as much as implied that he would go all tail-wager on me, I would . . ." Victoria made a horizontal gesture below her chin, perfectly demonstrating her intentions.

"Hell yeah, you did, 'cause you knew I'd wipe the floor with your carcass," Jacob snarled.

"Charming."

"Go fuck yourself."

"Ugh, you're not fun at _all_ ," Victoria whined, making a face that uncannily resembled that of a bratty child.

I pressed my back on the rough bunk of the pine, hugged my knees to my chest, and took a deep lungful of air.

When would she do it? Kill us, I mean. Why didn't she get to it already?

Oh, I knew why _ _ _ _—____ she meant to savor the moment, enjoy my torment, sneer at Jacob's pain.

She wanted to properly avenge her dead mate's death.

"How's Charlie, Isabella?" Victoria inquired unexpectedly, her tone displaying genuine interest, her eyes stilled on me. There was a flash before my eyes, and for a moment I saw red.

I strove to regain my composure and hedge a proper answer, but the words were swirling inside my head, and I was blindsided with anger.

My voice was shaky when I responded, "He's doing fine."

"Are you sure of that?" she asked, arching her eyebrows.

_She's bluffing, she's bluffing, she's bluffing._

"Yes, I am sure. I talked to him yesterday," I muttered, my brown eyes staring into her own pitch-black irises.

"Oh, Isabella. A lot of things can happen in a few hours," she said solemnly, and I bristled. "But enough with the chatter!"

With delicate steps she sauntered forward, toward me. Her finger grazed the outline of her chiseled chin _ _ _ _—____ after a few moments of contemplation, she tightened her hand around my left arm and snapped it like a twig.

My strangled cry covered the crunching sound my bone made as it broke, and memories of the ballet studio in Phoenix and the hunter's black as coal eyes surged into my brain.

"You bitch! You touch her again, and I rip your fuckin' heart out!" Jacob barked, but his voice sounded distorted in the haze of my agony.

"Boy," Victoria sneered in contempt, not even bothering to look at him, "I've fought men centuries older and a thousand times stronger than you. Fortunately for you, though, your blood stands a little below dog feces in the list of things I want to taste, so I'm not even tempted to pursue a fight with you." A friendly smile spread across her alabaster face.

Jacob spat on the ground.

A short second later Victoria was hovering above him, her hand gripping the sides of his face, her fingernails digging into his flesh. "You don't disrespect me like that, you _mutt_ ," she hissed, and forcefully pushed him down. With a graceful hop, she was back on her feet.

"I trust that Laurent visited you in Forks," she commented.

"He found me . . . or I found him," I said tonelessly.

"Your mongrel and his pack murdered him."

"What a terrible loss."

"Cut the sarcasm, Swan. It doesn't suit you. I _am_ , however, grateful he didn't go through with killing you. It would have saved me the trouble finding you, but the joy of killing the mate of the vampire that killed my James would be lost." She eyed me for a while, thoughtfully. "I wonder . . . ," she murmured to herself. "What should I do with you, Isabella? Frankly, I don't see what's the big fuss about you _ _ _ _—____ you aren't the only delicious human after all. Though, for some reason, the dog over here—" A growl from Jacob. "— seems to be willing to bend over backwards to save you. And that makes it all the more fun."

"Well, you can kill me," I hissed defiantly.

Victoria's eyes widened at my abrupt, audacious statement. I had caught her by surprise _ _,__ it seemed. As though she had been expecting me to plead, to kneel down and beg her to spare my pitiful existence.

Sure enough, she did a great job concealing it.

"Are you sure?" she gurgled. "Because your boyfriend isn't here to save you now." Her voice had now developed a taunting edge. She noticed my expression, which had turned into a grimace of pain, and the amicable smile returned to her face. "Oh, but I forgot. He doesn't care about you anymore. He won't care if I drain you tonight. In fact, he might even be relieved . . . ," she mused.

" _Lie_ ," a velvet voice instructs.

I gasped at the sound of it, but I can't say I was surprised. I did what it said to do.

"I don't think so," I said. I suppose I was trying to sound haughty, but my voice broke when I continued, "Edward is in Forks. Why would he be there, if he didn't care about me?"

"Lie _better_ ," my hallucination anxiously urged.

"He must have asked Charlie about my whereabouts," I added my voice too high. "In fact, he is probably on his way to find me."

"Silly girl," Victoria snorted. "Do you actually believe that Edward Cullen would return to Forks for a _human_ girl? He may have fooled you with false promises of everlasting love, but nothing you are will ever be a match to what he is. I don't think you've realized it yet, but you are _nothing_."

All my bravado evaporated as her words echoed themselves in my head.

Edward's voice remained silent.

"You are nothing but a human," she carried on. " _I_ am a vampire. _I_ am strong and beautiful. So eat your heart out, Isabella Swan."

I would have loved to be able to find something — _anything_ — to refute her derision, but I couldn't. I couldn't, because she was right. I was only a pester to Edward, a nuisance. Perhaps I wouldn't have, if I were strong and beautiful like her. Perhaps he wouldn't have left me then.

Tears were welling in my eyes now — a few feet across from me, I noticed Jacob's face, marred by the same agonized expression.

"Oh, there's no need for that, sweetie," she hummed. "Your Edward isn't here to save you." The sound of his name ripped into my chest like claws, and my breath came out in short, sharp huffs. "Oh, oh, I know," Victoria suddenly exclaimed as she sashayed toward Jacob once again. She inclined her head to the side, like she meant to examine him, then continued in the same pleasant tone, "I could—" She knelt down beside him and turned to face me. "— break his legs or—"

"No, _NO_!" I shrieked, extending my good arm in a pleading gesture. "I will do anything — _anything_. Just . . . don't hurt him."

"Oh, don't worry," she waved me off. "I already told you, your dog is of no interest to me. But you, Isabella, you have already accepted your fate," she said in a sing-songy voice. My breath hitched in my throat, and a muffled sound of protest escaped my mouth. Victoria smiled innocuously. "We will play a game, Isabella Swan," she said fondly. "If your wolf moves an _inch_ , I will break a bone in your body. One move equals one bone. Two hundred and six bones, the human body has. So many possibilities . . ."

Jacob growled.

"Don't worry, mutt. Your turn will come soon enough, if you want it _that_ badly," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, before she turned her attention back to me. "What do you think, Isabella? How long will he resist his primitive instincts to rip his mortal enemy apart?"

Her surprisingly soothing tone sent a shiver down my spine. It was as if my brain had ceased to function, because fear _wasn't_ clawing at my insides, as it should.

In fact, I couldn't recall actually being frightened of Victoria tonight. Nettled, yes. Panicked, maybe, to an extent _ _ _—___ but not because of her. Rather, it had her implication about Charlie's well-being and Jacob's current state that had driven me over the edge.

My brassy statement before hadn't emanated from my new-found and short-lived courage, but, instead, from my lack of fear of the vampire that was now threatening to kill me.

I was going to die, yet I wasn't screaming in horror, wasn't running for my life _ _ _—___ something that would only prove to be fruitless and a rather foolish attempt anyway.

Instead, I found myself to be irrationally calm.

"We are going to have so much fun," she exclaimed cheerfully, and all I could think of was how alike her blithe nuance was to Alice's.

_I'm the world's best predator, aren't I?_

The pieces started slowly clicking into place.

_Everything about me invites you in _ _—__ my voice, my face, even my smell._

The reason why the imminent danger Victoria's wrath entailed did nothing to alarm me was because the predator _wasn't_ supposed to daunt me.

The predator lured, _then_ charged.

When Edward had laced his pronouncements of unconditional, eternal love with blunt proclamations of his bloodlust, I hadn't been scared. I was never supposed to be.

The unnatural feeling of calmness inside me subsided, just barely, as I became aware of Victoria's influence, and it gave me some space to think.

The thought of Victoria hunting me down and killing everyone I loved had seemed so unreasonably terrifying before _ _—__ unreasonably, because my senses were still foggy and confused from her intoxicating scent _ _—__ but that had only been because she wasn't _actually_ there.

The potential danger she posed had left me more terror-stricken me than her promise to break my bones.

And I knew why; vampires _dazzled_ humans. They dazzled them with their somber glances, and crooked smiles, and mellow voices.

"I know why you are doing this," I avowed on the spur of the moment. Victoria looked at me, her expression a combination of query and amusement.

"And why is that?" she inquired. "I'm _dying_ to find out."

"You are jealous," I asserted. For a moment, I thought I heard a familiar, exasperated sigh.

"Is that so?" she mused meekly.

"Yes," I maintained. "You are jealous, because James is dead, and Edward is alive. He might not love me anymore, but he's _alive_. You will never have that again."

"Don't push your luck, Bella," Edward's voice cautioned, but I ignored it.

"But do you know the main reason why _you_ are eating your heart out?" I pressed.

"Please, enlighten me."

"Deep inside, you _know_ that he wanted me, that he never wanted _you_ like that." My lips curled into a complacent grin. "He used _you_ , but he wanted _me_."

"Don't make me snap your neck, Isabella," Victoria blustered.

Her words effectively quieted me, but I didn't shrink away.

"I think I've made my decision," she murmured after a while. I stared into the bottomless black of her eyes, and she smiled pleasantly at me. "I hope you said goodbye to your wolf," she continued in her high-pitched, girlish voice, "because as soon as I'm done with you, I will have some fun with him as well."

My pupils dilated as the words sank in, and a choked, wrenching sound came from my mouth, and the vampire giggled. "But you said you wouldn't," I croaked.

"Did I?" she chaffed.

My knees jumbled of their own accord, as I came to realize that she had never meant any of it; she would never have spared Jacob. Honestly, it shouldn't have come as a surprise. After all, didn't I have experience with vampires who failed to keep their promises?

Victoria ambled forward.

I strove to feel something, something that indicated I was still _sane_ , but there was an empty space in the place where my terror should lie.

Her hand caressed my torso in an almost seductive manner and descended toward my thigh. I could tell she didn't intend to actually harm me; her goal was to provoke Jacob.

And it worked.

Across from me, Jacob slowly rose to his feet.

Victoria murmured something, and I fought to keep my eyes fixated on her. "What do you think, Isabella? Will your puppy be able to restrain himself?" she inquired with an alluring purr. I nodded vigorously, and a smile crept onto her lips.

"I trust him," I whispered, never losing eye contact.

"Hear that, _Jake_?" she asked tauntingly. Jacob growled in response. "I wonder . . . what did you see in her?"

"It's none of your business," he grunted.

My eyes flicker back and forth, between Victoria and Jacob. Victoria's flawless face is a mask of amusement. Jacob looks flushed; he could be angry, or . . . embarrassed.

"She's not particularly pretty. Or interesting," Victoria noted.

Something sliced through my heart — this was what a vampire thought of a human. This was what Edward thought of me. When his lust for my blood had begun to die down, he had come to his senses.

I had never been his equal.

"At least she's not a reeking leech," Jacob said sharply.

"Ooh, _burn_."

"Likewise," he hissed. "Not even in your dreams could you be the person Bella is."

Victoria smirked. "That's where you are wrong, dog — I _can't_ dream. By the way, you don't exactly smell like fresheners." She lowered her eyes to face me. "Yes, I suppose he will kill me tonight," she conceded, "but at least I will have gotten my revenge." She winked at me.

"It won't matter, because you'll be dead," I spat out angrily. Victoria glowered at me, but I wasn't intimidated. Her unconscious ability to draw me close and eliminate the terror that should be lying in my heart backfired at her.

"I suppose you have a point. But James' death hasn't left me with much to live on. An eternity is hard to endure when you're alone," she whispered, and her voice didn't sound like it belonged to a spoiled child anymore; it had a nuance strangely melancholic, almost defeated. Under any other circumstances, I might even take pity on her.

My eyes registered a vague movement behind Victoria, and the next moment the quiet is diluted by ear-splitting growls and the sound of bodies slamming against trees.

I crouched to a fetal position, trembling, as Jacob, snarling and yelping, snapped for Victoria's neck. Their movements were so swift that my useless human eyes couldn't perceive them, their bodies woven in a deadly blur. There was no way to tell who had the upper hand.

Victoria managed a strike at Jacob's ribcage. Jacob got a hit inches above her abdomen.

I shut my eyes as tears gushed miserably down my cheeks. The dins of the fight pierced my ears like a cutlass, and all I could do at this point was to fend it off.

A gust of wind rippled through me, whipping across my exposed skin.

Where _were_ we? Where had Victoria taken us? I had already determined that we weren't in Louisiana — or any other state in the southern region of the country. We were probably north; Canada, maybe, or Michigan.

There was another deafening clamor, and, then, nothing.

"Open your eyes, Isabella," a childlike voice whispered into my ear.

Victoria was towering over me, when I opened them. They frantically searched for Jacob, and, when they finally located him, crouched and moaning, a choked whimper escaped through my teeth.

"Oh, don't overreact, silly. He's not dead. _Yet_ ," Victoria said, rolling her eyes. "But there will be repercussions for his idiocy," she added venomously, gesturing to her right side.

My eyes followed her movement.

There was a hole spanning from her abdomen to her ribs, where Jacob had gotten a hit — not a hole like the one that was throbbing with pain in my chest, but a real, a gaping one, oozing a murky, silvery substance.

Victoria arose, and drifted towards Jacob.

I cast an anxious glance at his body; his chest was heaving at a rapid pace, and his breath was coming out in short, rushed puffs.

My mind was racing.

I thought of the matchbox inside my jeans' pocket. I could slide a match along the striker, and hurl it into the gaping hole on her side. But there were a few downsides to this scenario: first, I would have to stand up — which would take a tremendous amount of effort on my part — and walk the short distance on my wobbly legs. However, that would most likely have the same outcome as my futile previous attempt; Victoria would hear the sound I made and overpower me before I realized it.

Supposing I managed not to startle her, I would have to strike the match, and that would cost me a few valuable seconds — seconds that could make the difference between life and death.

I quickly overruled this idea.

My eyes flickered to the ground, to the now snapped in half branch I had foolishly attempted to use as a diversion. I had already established that it would cause no notable damage to Victoria — I could distract her and jam it inside the hole, but I highly doubted it would work.

That was when I noticed something else; the pointy end that, while unable to injure a vampire, could wound a mortal fairly severely. And I wanted to draw blood.

It was true; _almost_ nothing could stand in the way of a vampire, but everyone had their Achilles' heel. And tonight Victoria's eyes were the darkest shade of black.

She was thirsty.

Like a dream, blemished and distorted, images of the Cullens' living room rolled before my eyes, snippets of my birthday party replayed themselves in my head. Then, my flowing blood had been enough to catch every vampire's attention, to freeze them all in place for an instant. It had been a single droplet of blood that had awaken Jasper's bloodlust, and if it had worked that way on a vampire that has been practicing abstinence from human blood for at least fifty years, it would have a similar, if not even more potent, effect on one that hasn't.

I steeled myself and sucked in one deep breath as I raked the point of the branch up my arm, yanking my shirt back to expose the skin, and pressed the sharp tip to the crease of my elbow.

Victoria was distracted by the sound of my gasp. Her eyes, holding still for one tiny portion of a second, met mine. Fury and curiosity mingled strangely in her expression.

Her face looked almost hypnotized, and her mostly composed demeanor faltered at the sight of the single streak of blood sliding down my arm. My own eyes remained trained on her as she drew on, but they didn't miss the movement behind her.

At the sound of Jacob phasing Victoria's head whipped toward the general direction of it, but it was too late.

The russet-brown wolf tore into the frigid flesh of the vampire.

Something like metallic screeching filled the forest.

Then, silence.

_****_


	6. Visitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Romantic" Edward ahead. I warned y'all.

_but that was love, and it's an ache I still remember_  
Gotye, "Somebody That I Used To Know" _  
_

**  
**

The sharp smell of antiseptic invaded my nostrils when I woke up.

My eyes fluttered weakly when I tried to open them. When I did, there was only a glaring whiteness — the fluorescent lightning distorted my surroundings to a blur.

I determined that I was in a hospital room. I gingerly raised an arm to push a strand of mahogany hair from my face, but realized that it was too heavy for me to lift. I inclined my head to the left and saw a cast wrapped around it.

It felt as though the sight of my insured arm pulled an imaginary trigger; images and sounds began to interconnect and form fractured memories. A moonlit forest. Jacob, crouched to the ground. A strident voice exulting derisions. Shivering orange waves rolling toward the trees.

It was over.

"Bells?" I blinked as a shadowy figure came into my field of view, and I had to repeat the motion several times before it fully returned.

"Jake?"

"Yeah." I took my time to appreciate the sight of him, and I was shocked to realize that he had recovered immaculately. The injuries Victoria had inflicted on him no longer looked like anything worth shedding a tear for.

"How? I mean, you were . . . ," I stammered out. A smile crept to his lips, as if he had been expecting my question.

"Werewolf, remember?" he said with a smirk, but it didn't reach his eyes. "How are you holding up?"

"I . . ." I shook my head. "I don't know," I admitted. A part of me was convinced that I should be huddled, clutching my sides in memory of the events that had led me here. But I was numb. Not just physically — Victoria's influence must have taken its toll on me mentally, as well. "Where are we?" I asked.

"Michigan," Jacob replied, his voice sounding oddly strained.

At first, his answer had no effect on me — I simply nodded and shifted under the paper-thin covers.

Then it dawned on me that this didn't make much sense.

My limited, high school–acquired knowledge of geography allowed me to discern the variations of climate and flora in the continental US. The forest where Victoria had taken us could be located anywhere between the northeastern states and Canada, so Michigan was definitely not far-fetched.

But _how_ exactly had we managed to transport from Louisiana to Michigan in a matter of a few hours and stay there long enough for Victoria to feel bored by my unconsciousness?

"She drove us here. She kept injecting something into you — to keep you unconscious," he said, bestirring to keep his voice steady.

I cast an apprehensive glance at him and noticed something about the way he was carrying himself; he looked distant, repulsed even.

"What's wrong—" I began to ask, although the answer was all too obvious.

"Won't you even acknowledge my presence, Bella?" a mellow, sorrowful, and _so familiar_ voice called from the far end of the room, and my heart started hammering inside my chest — action, reaction.

Edward's lips pulled up on one side, allowing a bleak smile — it was only a shadow of his dazzling crooked one, yet my breath hitched in my throat. At least this time I remembered to breathe.

"Edward?" His flawless face twitched at the sound of my voice — or, for all I know, at the sound of his name coming from my lips — and his eyes burnt into mine with feverish intensity. I noted that they had taken on their amber tint, meaning he had recently fed. His unruly dark copper hair stack out in multiple directions, his pale hands in the pockets of his jeans. He looked as dashing as always, and I was left to marvel at his beauty.

What was he doing here?

"Jacob," I began, preparing myself for his reaction, "can you leave us alone for a minute?"

His reply was flat and unyielding. "No."

"Please, Jake," I implored. I gave him a pleading look and felt the betrayal in his gaze.

That moment I felt like the most selfish person on the planet, like I had just tossed what Jacob and I had in the trash for a minute with Edward.

"One minute," he said finally, shooting a glare at Edward. With fleet steps, he walked to the door. "If the bastard tries any of his leech tricks—" A low, if slightly exasperated, laugh from Edward. "— he'd better be ready for me," he grunted, before he slammed the door shut behind him.

Now that he was gone, I couldn't help but question my decision to be alone with Edward. Yesterday — _had_ it been yesterday? I couldn't tell how long I'd been unconscious — I had discovered first-handedly a vampire's influence on a human. I should have known, really, after my relationship with Edward, but hadn't I been supposed to be in love with him?

I had been meant to dread Victoria.

This realization posed a very important question: were any of my feelings for Edward _real_?

After Edward had left, a part of him stayed with me in Forks; an illusion I instinctively constructed. An illusion that still loved me. The honeyed voice that had whispered promises of undying love, the molten gold of his irises . . . I used to think that my blemished fantasies didn't even come close to doing him justice, but now I realized I _preferred_ the illusion I had striven to feed.

I was willing to take the beautiful lie over the painful truth, any day.

How pathetic.

"How are you feeling, Bella?" Edward asked, his gentle tones sending shocks of pleasure down my spine.

What I had intended to do was to look daggers at him and mutter something along the lines of: "I was nearly killed by a vampire. How do _you_ think I am feeling?" Instead, I heard a low whimper escape through my gritted teeth.

"Why are you so surprised to see me here?"

A surge of anger rose up inside me, and even I was shocked when I spat out, "Why _should_ I expect you, Edward?" Disappointment glistened in his eyes, and my gaze fell from his face to his hands.

"I didn't expect such a foolish question from you," he admitted. "You honestly thought that I wouldn't care—"

"Spare me the pity talk, Edward." As the words left my mouth, harsher than I had intended them to be, they twisted my expression, and the sudden throbbing pain in my chest left me out of breath. I cringed at my weakness — treating Edward's motives with suspicion and incredulity must be some kind of violation of the laws of nature.

"I am here as a favor to Carlisle," he said curtly, "but I had to make sure you were recovering well. I couldn't let him send Alice or Emmett."

"Well, that's too bad." After a few, painfully slow moments, I asked, "Alice?"

Edward nodded slightly.

I couldn't look at him. I simply couldn't bear to. My eyes moved about aimlessly, studying my surroundings, in an attempt to focus on anything barring his face.

Admittedly, I failed. But it was a distraction.

The room wherein I had been admitted was rather large and luminous. I had been in hospitals a good umpteen times in my life — with my unnerving proneness to accidents and general clumsiness and all — but they had never looked quite like this. I sensed either Edward or Carlisle had something to do with this treatment.

Speaking of Edward, his footsteps echoed on the tile floor, approaching me. Soon enough, his scent left me lightheaded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him extent his hand to me — I reached out and pull the beige envelope it was carrying.

"What is this?" I inquired flatly.

"A message from Carlisle," he replied. I slid the sealing flap along and gingerly lifted the adhesive. My eyes scanned the paper, taking in the carefully written characters:

_Dear Miss Swan,_

_Prior commitments have regrettably confined me in Forks. However,  
Edward has kindly offered to meet you following your recovery._

_I can assure you that your accident afflicted my family greatly, and we are  
all eagerly anticipating your recuperation. Should you return to Forks,  
my family and I would be delighted to assist you in any way you may  
desire.  
_

_My regards to Mr. Jacob Black._

_Salutations,_

_Dr. Carlisle Cullen, MD_

I lifted my gaze to meet Edward's.

"What is this?" I repeated dryly.

"A message from Carlisle," he said obviously.

"I don't need any help from your family," I snapped.

Edward offered a grim smile. "Somehow, I doubt that," he murmured, his voice stern yet remarkably soft. "It seems to me, Bella—" He frowned and focused his eyes on an intelligible spot on the floor. "— that whenever I leave you, you find yourself in trouble. I thought that it had been my presence that put you at risk, but I suppose you cannot protect yourself on your own."

His melodic tones were frank, but, then again, vampires did have such an effect.

"Why do you even care?" I blurted out.

My words must have had the opposite effect from what I would have liked, because the amused expression on his face didn't seem forced. "Was I that good a liar?"

I froze. "What do you mean?"

There was the low but distinct sound of Jacob hissing an obscenity, and the door was flung open against the wall with force, slamming into it with a loud _smack_.

"Time's up," Jacob grunted. He directed a look I could only describe as disgruntled towards Edward. "That's where you are wrong, leech," he muttered. "Bella doesn't need _you_. She has _me_. _I_ was there when you weren't."

"Yes, and look how well _that_ turned out."

"I think I can speak for myself," I interjected, shooting angry glances at both of them. "Look, Edward . . . I get it that you are trying to be nice and everything, but I don't _need_ your help." I was trying to remain as composed as I could — and as the morphine flowing through my veins through the IV that penetrated the crook of my elbow allowed me to — but vitriol was dripping from my words.

"I completely understand why you have no desire to see me, Bella," Edward pressed, "but you have to understand me; you are _not_ safe."

I rolled my eyes. "I am in a hospital bed with a broken arm among other injuries. A vampire who thirsted for my blood did this to me. I am caught into the web of the supernatural, and, somehow, I keep imperiling myself. So, yeah. Thanks for the information," I muttered.

The smile on Edward's lips now was more genuine than his bleak previous attempt. "I see that you are in a bit of an irritable mood — or just really bad at sarcasm," he remarked. I narrowed my eyes at him. "Nevertheless, I don't think you comprehend the extent of the peril you are in." My silence gave him rise to continue. "Victoria is dead."

"Good. So, there's no need to worry then—"

"She wasn't alone, as we originally assumed," he interrupted and looked at me expectantly.

"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled. "Is there anyone else we don't know of in James' coven?" The possibility of that was terrifying. James and Victoria had been lovers, so I suppose I understood the bond they'd shared. Laurent, on the other hand, though one third of their coven, certainly hadn't displayed neither their adamance nor their resolution. Still, if I were to judge by the Cullens' complete devotion to each other, things didn't look too bright for me.

Edward shook his head, refuting my distress. "No. Victoria did belong to another coven before joining James'," he explained. "That coven's sole survivor is Heidi, who works for the Volturi now." I arched my eyebrows, but the name rang inside my head like some sort of alarm that screams "Danger". Yes, I remembered the Volturi; Carlisle's former friends, the highest echelon of the vampire hierarchy and the closest thing they had to royalty.

"Is Heidi—?"

"Don't worry about that. Were the Volturi involved in this situation . . . not even my family would be able to protect you." I heaved a sigh of relief — if there was anything the Volturi were notorious for, it was their mercilessness, and I could only imagine that what Victoria had had in store for me was merely child's play compared to them. Obviously, a mortal aware of vampire's ought to be considered a threat to their preserved world.

"Then what is it?" I asked, my voice small.

"Victoria created her own coven."

I felt my jaw drop.

A coven? Why would Victoria create a new coven? Edward had explained to me, an eternity ago, that when vampires committed, they committed for life — if they fell in love, they would have found their mate for the rest of eternity. I fought to suppress the quivering on my battered, bruised heart.

Victoria had made it pretty clear to me; she didn't intend to spend eternity without James. So, why was it that she had created a coven — in Seattle, of all places?

"A— A coven? How do you know?"

"The Volturi's attention has been drawn to the subject," Edward explained formally. "It is a very . . . delicate situation. On any occasion a vampire — particularly a newborn one that would more readily succumb to their natural urges — brings attention onto themselves, by indulging their appetite too . . . obviously, the Volturi interfere to restore order. Their base of action is Seattle, and the only vampire coven within close proximity is Carlisle's, so it was only natural for our family to be informed of the situation."

"How many are there?"

"As far as we're concerned, _enough_. However, we suspect that after Victoria's demise the number has begun to dwindle substantially. They never communicated with her directly — aside from her transformation — but it seems that she had a very tight leash on them. There _was_ one who was acquainted with her and on a more intimate level, though, despite being the oldest vampire in the army, he is still relatively young. And, as most young vampires go, impulsive and uncontrollable."

Impulsive and uncontrollable.

As terrifying and deadly as Victoria had been, she had been a vampire for many years — even if she'd fed on human blood, she ought to have developed some self-control, and that had made her less dangerous than a young vampire. If a newborn caved in to their craving for blood, as Edward said, chaos would ensue.

"Do people know? I mean, do they know that the killings aren't . . . natural?"

"The newspapers are trying to disguise them as the work of a raging serial killer."

" _One_ person? How does that make sense?"

"They're just theories. The police 'fear gang activity', given the fact that some of the victims were drug addicts, prostitutes, homeless people who simply found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that doesn't make much sense, either — amongst them were also shopkeepers, middle-class teenagers, and a police officer."

A shudder rippled through my body.

This was _my_ fault; the "gang activity" victims in Seattle, these poor people that were turned into vampires despite their will — all because of a madwoman that wanted vengeance. But, really, because of me and my selfish decision for love.

"What can I do about it?" I made a grimace at the naivety of my question. What _could_ I do about it? I was only human, and we were talking about vampires here — impossibly strong, newborn vampires.

"Stay safe," Edward said. "Though the unlikelihood of this is extremely high." His words sent a pang of agony to my already battered heart, reminding once again of my complete inadequacy.

"Why do you have to — to demean her like that, Cullen?" an incredulous Jacob chimed in, causing Edward to directly pay attention to him for the first time.

"I don't think I understand."

"You heard me, leech. If it weren't for her, the redheaded bloodsucker would still be alive. And both of us would be _dead_."

"Bella was lucky," Edward said gently. He looked at my casted arm. "You were _so_ lucky. However, I don't think I can allow this to—"

"Oh, how gives a _shit_ about what you can and can't allow, Cullen," Jacob spat out in revulsion. "Doesn't it occur to your dead brain that you don't speak for her?"

"Why don't you let _me_ do it then, Jake?" I groaned in exasperation. Both of them turned around to face me. "I survived, Edward," I pressed, my voice beginning to crack, "and, trust me, luck had little to do with it." Maybe that wasn't the truth; luck _did_ play a vastly important role. Had it not, I _would_ be dead. I couldn't be sure about Jacob, but my fate, as Victoria said, was already planned.

Edward opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut, and tilted his head to the side, staring at Jacob in amusement.

"Yes, I certainly understand that," he said finally.

"Stay the _hell_ out of my head," Jacob snapped.

"Can you explain to me what's going on over here?" I inquired anxiously.

"Jacob is, justifiably, wondering why I am _now_ concerned about your safety," Edward replied. "I asked you before, Bella; a thousand truths were so easily shattered by _one_ lie?"

My eyes went wide at his unexpected pronouncement. "I don't understand," I faltered, and I was deafened by what can only be the frantic thumping of my heart.

"You don't believe me, do you? I am willing to beg, if that's what it takes." He smiled meekly.

"You— I can't—" I stammered out, desperately trying to form articulate words.

The door swung open once again, and a lovely young woman of maybe twenty-five, clad in generic light blue scrubs, entered the room, followed by a stern-looking middle-aged man with large horn spectacles sitting on the bridge of his long nose.

"Oh, our patient's up!" the nurse gushed.

I idly raised my fist in what was supposed to be an enthusiastic asserting response. I probably ended up looking like a child dragged to a party.

The doctor went on to explain, in a voice that suited his appearance, that I had broken my radius bone in two places, and, thus, needed to wear a cast for six weeks. The trauma on the back of my head, where Victoria had tossed me against the trunk of a pine, thankfully, wasn't a concussion, but it still hurt a lot. There were other superficial wounds on my palms, but, other than that, I'd stood lucky, all things considered.

The pretty nurse glanced at Jacob with an equal amount of apprehension and fascination. "Your friend over here told us you are very accident prone." There was a nuance of doubt in her voice as she uttered the words.

"Yes," a voice affirmed with a soft laugh — a voice that didn't belong to me. I looked up to see Edward staring at me in amusement.

"Yes," I repeated, not daring to look away. Edward's eyes bore into mine — they acted similarly to his melodious voice during all those times I had purposefully compromised myself just to relive the illusion, to revive the hallucination. "Hospitals are kind of like a second home to me," I added with a light laugh. I went on to describe an embarrassing, mostly made-up childhood incident that involved ten stitches and a lot of blood, at which the stern man barely cracked a smile. Well, if he had known me, he wouldn't have found it as dubious.

"I see," he said, staring at me with narrowed eyes.

Come to think about it, it probably _did_ seem suspicious that an injured teenager and two over-protective boys' attempted to assert a doctor that the aforementioned teenager's injuries were merely an unfortunate coincidence.

In all fairness, this man's reaction would be considered rather meek, compared to Charlie's.

* * *

"You know what?"

It was the first time Jacob spoke since we got to spend some time alone. He had been flinching and shifting in his chair for a good five minutes, while I mentally fumbled through my words.

I looked up to see a thwarted Jacob eying me cautiously, his tall frame hunched, his elbows pressed against his legs.

"Hmm?"

"We never went to a _single_ baseball game."

"Is it even baseball season?" I questioned doubtfully.

"Don't try to act all smartass — sports aren't your forte."

"Oh, sorry. Would you like me to return to the kitchen?" I shot back peevishly. A sharp pain mostly located in my head twisted my intended smile to a grimace. Jacob's large hand softly grazed my cheek, and I shivered.

"Get some sleep, maybe?" he suggested.

"I've slept enough." A beat. "Why didn't you tell me Edward was in Forks?" The question had been percolating in the back of my head ever since my conversation with Charlie, but had been overshadowed by far more serious concerns. Such as my abduction and near murder by Victoria.

Jacob dropped his gaze to the floor. "I told you what I heard."

Doubt filled my mind. "But you _hate_ the Cullens, Jacob. You despise them," I protested. "You don't want me to be with Edward—"

"You're right, I don't," he cut me off. "He's _bad_ for you, Bella. He—"

"I don't remember having assigned you as my advocate or spokesman," I spat. A twinge of guilt squished my bruised heart at the truth of his words, but _my_ words dripped acid.

"Fine," he concurred, dropping the subject. "So . . . no more road trip, huh?"

I still held my reservations on Jacob's honesty, but I had no desire to talk about Edward. Distractions were my top priorities, lately. "What gave you that impression?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Dunno, your arm," he said, pointing to my cast. "The fact that there is an army of newborn bloodsuckers in Seattle."

"All the more reason to stay away then. It doesn't make sense for us to go back now with the vampires so close."

"The Cullens have made an agreement with Sam," Jacob allowed. "They will fight the leeches together. There's a lot of them, Bells. I have to be there."

I sighed. "Clearly, you aren't in love with the idea," I mutter, resting my head on the pillow. "And, anyway, I thought you agreed to leave all of this behind."

"I know. I don't like it either. But . . . think about it this way. You will get to graduate, and we'll have plenty of time afterward, anyway."

I heaved a sigh. "Right. Graduation." College. Future.

* * *

_Tap. Tap. Tap.  
_

Raindrops, thick and large, beat rhythmically against the window, pulling me back from the edge of unconsciousness each time I was close to slipping under. A conversation was taking place a few feet away. Or, judging by the low hissing and muttering, it was more of a wrangle.

"If _anything_ happens to her because of my own negligence, I will not be able to live with myself," a cool and formal voice said.

"Oh, please. That was the reason you were gone in the first place," Jacob seethed. "You and your family of _parasites_ are going to leave—"

"If I recall correctly," Edward interrupted, "our presence in Forks doesn't constitute a violation of the treaty."

"To hell with the treaty," Jacob barked. From what I could discern out of the corner of my eyes, his chest was heaving, and his shape was beginning to blur around the edges — an indicator of a forthcoming transformation.

I could actually _feel_ his blood boiling with rage, and, to my utter surprise, mine did too — its sheer potency shocked me to my core. I didn't understand contracts between vampires and werewolves, but I knew this: should the Cullens stay in Forks, more kids like Jacob and Seth would exchange their sunny smiles for a burden they couldn't even comprehend.

I suddenly remembered a conversation Jacob and I had had, not too long, and yet seemingly an eternity, ago.

 _"You don't get it, Bella._ They _triggered the gene. They don't have to do anything; just exist. Sam had turned long before any of us did. When the Cullens left, we thought it would stop — except it didn't. The redheaded leech came to town, and we didn't have a treaty with _that_ one. She freely roamed our lands, and killed people . . . Now, the Cullens are back, which only makes matters worse."_

"I don't expect you to understand," Edward said tersely, and there was a ring of familiarity in his tone, "but I am not leaving Bella. If she doesn't want me, I will be more than happy to remain in the sidelines and never infer in her life. But I have to ensure her safety — and happiness. At least give me that."

"I watched her waste away, then slowly come back to life. I saw what you did to her. Why can't you let her move on?" Jacob interjected, his voice was desperate now, pleading. "Victoria is dead. Sam has agreed to work with you to kill the newborn leeches. _I_ can protect Bella, if she wants me to."

"Vampires aren't the only threat to Bella's safety."

What did he mean by that? He couldn't possibly believe . . .

"What are you implying, leech?" Jacob hissed.

"This is not a personal insult, rest assured," Edward contended. "Your kind possesses a certain trait. You may not feed on blood — human or otherwise _—_ but your presence around people is as perilous as ours. And that is assuming you possess the same self-control as my family, which you do not."

"I would _never_ hurt Bella."

"Oh, I know that — you have _ensured_ I know that." His laugh was humorless. "No, you wouldn't hurt Bella — not of your own volition. I never implied that. However, I don't want to take the risk."

"So, what? You're going to protect her, how? By being a bloodsucker?" There was a pause. "You don't understand the effect your presence has on her," Jacob pressed in desperation after a while. "Your presence is _—_ It's _infecting_ her like a virus. You're _unhealthy_ for her."

"It is neither something I can control, nor something I do consciously."

"If you love her, as you keep stressing, let _her_ decide what she wants. But _stay away_."

I felt the earth shift beneath me — or, perhaps, it was only my heartbeat, growing stronger, more potent.

Edward still loved me.

I could intone each word of this sentence, and it would still fill me with the same heart-warming joy.

Whatever held the scab inside my wounded chest together dissolved, as though the healing process had never happened.

"She isn't in love with you. She . . . she's in love with the idea of you."

"I will be the judge of this."

A pause.

"You can't give her what she needs," Jacob whispered finally.

"I know." The room sank in silence for a moment. "But I am willing to give her all I have."

* * *

The topaz of his eyes was cold, frigid, as his hands that cupped my cheeks.

My heartbeat hammered frantically inside my chest.

"I swore I would protect you," he whispered in my hair, "with every fiber of my being."

His hands left my face, and his perfect form began to drift away from me.

A whimper of protest escaped through my teeth, and my hands, desperately but in vain, searched for him in the darkness.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard the howl of a lone wolf.

_They fight._

_Paris_ _falls._


	7. Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Why, yes, I invented a new Porsche model. Because why the hell not.) What a long-ass hiatus, huh? I can't really blame it on lack of inspiration or a bitchy muse. It was more lack of time. I have a few chapters typed and (half-)edited, so it isn't as though I'm going to have to bleed for the next 15k words or so. But, yeah. Also, my brother's computer is currently plagued by some virus, so shit's getting real. I'm currently playing the hacker. I don't know what this has to do with anything, let alone the fic, but I just thought I'd mentioned it. Y'know, 'cause I'll probably need something to excuse my writer's block.
> 
> Say what?

_i don't want to wake up on my own anymore_

__The Smiths, "Asleep"__

 

Five-star hotels really do have the best bathrooms.

After spending a few weeks in grimy motel rooms and questionable bathrooms, I reveled in the idea of bathing in a proper bathtub — with bubble bath, and oils, and everything. It certainly makes the process of washing oneself with one hand less nerve racking. And maybe the idea that Edward paid for a sumptuous hotel room for me and Jacob was more than satisfying.

Once my doctor wrote the discharge note that formally ended my impatient care, Edward insisted that we improve our state of accommodation. Of course, he seemed to ignore the fact that my savings account — upon which the ensuring of our vestigial creature comforts was based — was steadily crumbling into paucity. I was unsure whether to tell him or not; he would no doubt attempt to offer us money.

I didn't want his money. In fact, I didn't want anything from him.

It soon became apparent, that I couldn't afford to spend any more of my savings. Jacob and I had talked about one of us getting a job before — hint: it had been Jacob — and given my current situation, I wasn't fit to work.

Perfunctorily — and, admittedly, guiltily — I accepted Edward's help. Jacob was far less receptive, but that was kind of expected from him. I couldn't decipher  _why_  he did it. He could have, after all, simply driven away in some fancy car after my discharge from the hospital. He would have ensured I was healthy — out of guilt, no doubt — and that would be it.

Part of me doubted I'd heard right. Jacob had insinuated Edward still loved me, and Edward himself admitted he'd . . . No, I had misheard. It was the morphine, or whatever they had injected into me. A mere implication. It was wishful thinking. It was my illusion taunting me.

I still held my reservations when I saw our room; it felt larger than the collective rooms we'd stayed in, larger than life itself. I was never used to luxury, much less Jacob, so the monogrammed robes, and the soft slippers, and the fully stoked minibar were like an oasis. The grime-friendly motels from the last couple of weeks being the desert.

There was one thing, though. It was like a pang in the chest, so intense and immediate, not quite like the feeling of my heart being squished to a pulp I was used to, but more like . . . immense disappointment. It was bizarre, really, and I felt guilty and really stupid, but I hated the fact that Jacob and I had two separate beds.

I shouldn't feel like that; after all we'd spent our illicit road trip on two singles. Aside from the night of Victoria's attack — a cold shiver rippled down my spine at the memory, and something hitched in my throat. A scream? I hadn't allowed myself to think much about that night — it was too horrifying, all too traumatizing.

I concentrated on the foggy steam that clung to the mirror and the opaque glass that surrounded the bathtub and the subtle smell of orange that emanated from my hair in order to retain my sanity. Upon carefully toweling it off with a plush towel, I tossed it over my shoulders, where it tumbled in a thick gloss down my back. God bless conditioners.

"I don't like it. It's too  _fancy_ ," Jacob said pointedly, twisting the linen fabric of the bedsheets between his index and middle finger.

"Alright," I murmured, emerging from the bathroom, allowing a trail of steam escape behind me.

"But . . .  _look at this_." He pointed to the embroidery of the coverlet. "What is he trying to prove?"

I heaved a sigh. "Nothing, Jacob. He's trying to prove nothing." Slumping onto my comfortable bed, I added, "Besides, you've got to admit — it's not that bad." Staring at the ceiling above me — no peeling paint or odd, askew cracks to be found there — it certainly didn't  _feel_  bad at all.

Jacob shrugged. "I still don't get how the bloodsucker became so generous all of a sudden."

"Well, you could at least thank him," I huffed. "It is a nice change from the the previous motels. I say we take advantage of the opportunity."

"Whatever," Jacob groaned. "I hate feeling dependent on him," he said after a beat.

I was ready for him to say it, to blurt it out. Perhaps I wouldn't have expected it  _before_ , but the werewolf part of him had rendered Jacob thicker, blunter. It had plastered an arrogant sneer on his face, and even when his eyes were warm and his smile genuine, I could still see it, tormenting me, reproaching me for loving a "bloodsucker".  _"How did you manage it for so long?"_

But he didn't.

"It's not for long," I said. "Soon we'll be in Forks — you'll get to kill vampires, and I get to return to my dull life."

"What, killing leeches isn't dull, you mean? Please. Do you take me for a rookie?"

I felt a smile creep onto my lips. "Oh, Alpha Jacob Ephraim Black, I am sorry to have doubted you," I say, mockery lacing the tone of my voice.

"Mocking, are we?" Childishly, I stuck my tongue out. "Well, you're in no place to mock, Swan," he proclaimed.

"How so?"

"Once we get to Forks, I'll tell Chief Swan all about you kidnapped me and used me for—" I lifted my foot to playfully push him away — which would do nothing to him — but he caught me mid-movement; with one swift motion, he scooped me up, slinging me over his shoulder like I was a burlap sack.

The shriek that I made sounded inhuman, I was certain of that. I thrashed and pounded against his sturdy back, my feeble fists literally having no effect on him.

"Put. Me. Down," I ordered, nearly choking with laughter, but he wouldn't. He kept spinning me around, laughing, too — his bark of a laughter — and collapsed with a thud on his bed, me on top of him. "You just  _wrecked_  a fine five-hundred–dollar bed!" I exclaimed, trying to get up from my awkward position. I detected no crunching sounds, but he was a six-foot tall teenage boy, and he weighted five times my own weight. It wouldn't be hard.A fiery blush spread over my cheeks when I realized I was straddling him — I could feel the muscles of his stomach against my thighs and the blush on my face deepening further. "So . . ." I drawled.

The look on his face cut me short — it was the look of someone who had denied their want for far too long. I gulped audibly when he grabbed my hips—

All coherent thought vanished for a half heartbeat, and a warm sensation flooded my senses.

—and gently placed me on the mattress.

"There," he murmured softly, his hot breath barely grazing my skin. I was suddenly acutely aware of his ridged with muscle stomach — he rarely wore a shirt; why was I noticing this now? — and the darkness of his eyes — his pupils had dilated to almost double their normal size, so I was staring into black instead of warm brown. "Happy?"

All I could muster up to do was nod wordlessly.

"I think I'm going to take a shower, too." He picked a strand of my still damp hair and coiled it around his finger. "Orange?" he murmured softly.

"Yeah."

"Smells nice."

"You're going to wash your hair with orange-scented shampoo?" I said with a tone of incredulity.

"No. I'm just saying you smell nice." There was a defensive tinge in his voice now.

"Do I smell bad generally?"

He tilted his head as though I'd said something stupid. "No, you don't."

"As if you'd say otherwise," I snorted playfully.

Once I heard the patter of water drops in the tub, I wiggled out of my bathrobe and tossed it over my bed. I hastily opened my backpack, looking for something to wear. During our road trip, Jacob and I hadn't gone to a Laundromat or anything of that sort — we had contented ourselves with soap and tub water, simply because we didn't have the convenience to spend more than the absolutely essentials. With chagrin, I realized that my clean clothes were becoming more and more scarce.

Something echoed — like the sound of pipes on the wall or maybe. . . .

I laughed at myself as I pulled a pair of sweatpants and a worn t-shirt from my backpack. I unzipped the inner pocket where I kept my underwear; with a groan of amusement and umbrage, I found Reneé's gifts jutting out slightly. The sheer lace was pretty, sure. But it was also really uncomfortable. I momentarily wondered what would Jacob say if he saw me in something like that, but quickly dissipated the thought. Why would Jacob see me in my underwear? And why was I  _thinking_  about him seeing me in my underwear?

I pulled on the sweatpants and t-shirt and sprawled over the bed; I felt my body slowly sink onto the mattress, like I was floating on a cloud.

* * *

I was staring into a pair of rubies.

The alabaster features on the vampire's face assembled into a cold, ivory mask. A shrill voice — like a young girl's — offered coolly, "Did you miss me, Isabella Swan?"

Maybe it was the iciness of the vampire's tone, or maybe it was the fact that she had called me by my full name, that made me recoil. It was such a hackneyed, generic movie-villain phrase, but it sparked memories I strove to suppress and bury forever.

Victoria lifted a frigid arm, and suddenly I was toppling over the edge, my body seemingly paralyzed as I fell, and my back crashed against the waves that lapped at the rocks of First Beach.

* * *

"I don't want your car, Edward."

The shiny yellow Porsche had attracted the interest of all the hotel guests, and even Jacob had peered at it long enough to admire the rims and the fascia before he barricaded himself in the Dodge, his face a deadpan mask.

"By all means, Bella, this is better than your . . . current transport—"

"But my 'current transport' is safer, and it's also  _mine_. You paid for our hotel room, that's great, I appreciate it." Glancing at Jacob's blurry figure behind the window glass, I added, " _We_  appreciate it. But I don't want anything else from you."

"Fine," Edward said solemnly. "If you need another stop to rest—"

"It doesn't have to be as excessive," I cut in. "It's not like I can't handle a motel room."

"I know that," Edward resonated, "but motel rooms are not exactly the most . . . hygienic place."

I groaned in exasperation. I didn't want anything from him, but, in actuality, I didn't want to owe him anything. "Just a little less . . . extravagant?"

"I know this may sound kinda strange," Jacob began, a bit timidly, when I got into the Dodge and sat beside him, "but I'm  _starving_."

I should feel uncofortable and awkward. Memories of last night still lingered in my thoughts, fighting to stay intact, as though they didn't want to be altered by time. Yet it wasn't either one of these things. For one thing, it was the naturalness of it all. It took all the strength I had in my body not to erupt in laughter. " _Shocker._  You're not starving, Jacob. People in Africa are starving."

Jacob pulled to the side of the road — with the corner of my eye, I saw Edward's Porsche emulate him; the truck sputters to a stop, making an awful wheezing noise.

"I'm gonna call Cullen," he stated. He turned to me, beaming. "D'you know any good restaurants in Illinois?"

"What? What for? Are you suddenly too high and mighty for greaseburgers?"

" _Grease_ burgers! God, that's accurate. And, no, I'm not too high and mighty for them — I just want to piss Cullen off."

I peered at the rear-view mirror; Edward was still parked behind us. I could almost discern him behind the tinted glass of the windshield. "He can hear you, you know," I said, my voice cautionary.

"Good." He unfolded the map against the dashboard. "Let's see what Rockford has to offer."

Jacob turned the key in the ignition — the Dodge started with an ear-splitting, roaring sound — and we were actuated once again. The flashy car behind us set off, also — but it did so without making any sound.

I think that did it.

I had not paid attention to the cars that sped by the ancient truck before — like I hadn't paid attention to the dull stretches of cornfields or the ugly urban areas we'd passed — but there was something about the striking color of the car, the way it moved behind us unnoticed. When I'd gotten the letter from Alice — the one that warned me to return to Forks, and the one I'd mistakenly ignored — I'd caught a glimpse of a gaudy car that sped off and vanished in the distance.

And there were more instances that hadn't had any significance at the time, because why should they? It may as well have been a coincidence, but I knew better. Not that it wasn't baffling, if my suspicion was more than just that.

I decided to seek a professional's opinion on the matter.

"Have you seen Edward's car before? I mean, is it a popular one?"

Jacob pried on the Porsche through the rear-view mirror. "It's a 911 Targa 5," Jacob said indifferently, but I could distinguish a hint of jealousy in his voice. His reply was as good as no reply at all. "It's not released yet," he elaborated. "To the public, at least. And it's customized. I think I read about in a magazine; the one there was black."

I glanced at the Edward's car. It was easily recognizable, even to me.

With an abrupt jerk of my head, I urged myself to snap out of it. I was paranoid, delusional. That's what I was. I was seeing ghosts.

But maybe seeing something that ought to not be there wasn't so impossible, after all. Wasn't I sitting beside a werewolf, casually discussing unreleased Porsche models? That was about as surreal as it could get.

* * *

The news of Harry Clearwater's death arrived unexpectedly on the following morning.

Jacob and I were having a toast-and-orange-juice breakfast in our hotel room. This one  _was_  less extravagant and opulent than the previous one, but that wasn't really saying much. Jacob wiped the remaining drips of juice from his mouth and announced the he was off to phase — a daily ritual now.

When he came back, three hours later, there was no longer his Jake smile on his lips, no longer the childlike insouciance flashing in his eyes. Instead, he was glum and sullen.

"Harry Clearwater had a heart attack, Bella." His words lingered as I tried to process them in my head. "He didn't make it; he passed away this morning."

_"He didn't make it."_

"That's . . ." Words failed me as the impact Jacob's pronouncement made my insides twist.  _Oh, no_   _Charlie._  ". . . horrible. Does Charlie know?" I rasped. Jacob nodded; my heart sank. "How's your dad holding up?" I queried, striving to keep my voice stable.

"He's," — a sigh — "not good."

"How did it happen?"

"We don't know for sure though the most plausible scenario is Leah's transformation."

" _Leah's_?" I thought girls couldn't phase; I couldn't remember if Jacob had mentioned so, the members of Sam's pack were all boys, so I had naturally assumed girls did not possess the 'curse gene'.

"Yeah. It was so unexpected I mean, even Sam was shocked. Harry couldn't handle it. His son, Seth, phased after his death."

I gasped. Seth. He was that kid Jacob had told me about, not that long ago. He was, what, fourteen? Now a werewolf, bearing on his broad shoulders the duty of protecting his ancestors' land from his kind's immortal enemies.

What about his life?

Edward had seemed so determined to stay in Forks, preoccupied with my well-being for whatever unfathomable reason, and even with Victoria dead, the transformations wouldn't stop. On the contrary, their number would grow explosively, with teenagers phasing left and right.

What would it take to convince Edward to leave Forks? He had made it pretty clear before that my safety was of his concern, but what about the bigger picture?

"When is the funeral?"

"In two days."

Somehow, bitterness clawed its way back into me, forming a scab over the hole in my chest, replacing the hollowness with anger.

According to Jacob, a theory for Harry's heart attack was Leah's unexpected transformation. And the reason she did transform was the Cullens' return.  _They_  did this. I used to think that they weren't monsters; they weren't like James, or Victoria, or the cruel Volturi.

I could sense all the lightness and euphoria from last night evaporate through the aeration, like it was given to us by accident, like it wasn't meant for us.

We made no stops afterwards, save for a short one at a highway diner.

* * *

A drab strip of asphalt stretched between walls of forest green. Trees spread out at the sides of the road, their vivid, lively color contrasting against the steel grey of the sky and the murky, shimmering scope in the horizon that was the ocean.

Forks was less than five miles away.

I was to drop Jacob off at the reservation and had hoped for any sort of conversation before our short-term goodbyes. The only thing I got out before he clambered out of the truck, speechless and surly, hunched forward as if he was carrying out a chore, was:

"See you tomorrow."

As I made a left for the highway, the vague feeling that I was being watched burgeoned inside me. My eyes fleeted through the timberline; several tall, dark frames stood in the edge of the forest, partially hidden by the dense foliage, silently observing me. Then, unexpectedly, one of them raised a hand over his head, and, at once, they all retreated behind the line of trees, following an unspoken command.

I recognized his face.

Sam Uley.

And his pack.

They hated me, I thought.

 _Good._  The feelings were most certainly mutual.

The drive to Forks seemed shorter than usual or maybe my memories had simply frayed. It was lonelier, that much was certain. Having spent countless hours on the road with Jacob, I was all too familiar with the warmth he exuded, his infectious laugh that shook the cab, his reassuring presence beside me.

I didn't feel empty, hollow.

I felt cold and a little jaded.

The Dodge rolled to a halt on the familiar driveway. Charlie's cruiser was parked in its usual spot.

My hands stiffened around the steering wheel. "It's not the end of the world," I whispered to myself, and I climbed out of the truck. Chilly Forks wind whipped across my face and the back of my exposed neck, and the abrupt change felt almost hostile. I fumbled inside my jeans pocket to retrieve the keys that weren't there.

Excellent.

With shaky fingers, I pressed the bell it made a shrill, familiar sound.

Maybe Charlie was with Billy and Sue.

 _The_ _cruiser is here._

Maybe he walked.

 _Walked. To the reservation._ Walked.

There was the fleeting sound of steps, and then the door opened broadly.

My eyes tried to process the image in front of me the cropped short hair, the pixie-like features, the miniature figure. The wide smile and the irises that were the color of liquid gold.

" _Alice_ _?_ "

A choked squeal escaped her mouth excitement, maybe? Because there was no way I'd actually surprised Alice Cullen and her tiny arms shot forward to clamp around me. My breath hitched in my throat, and the pressure of her tiny body sent shocks of pain down my broken arm.

"Alice? I can't I can't  _breathe_!"

Her gripe around me relaxed remarkably, but she didn't move. "Oh my God, Bella. I've missed you so,  _so_  much." She took a step back to examine my face. Her eyes fell on the cast on my left arm. "Does it hurt?"

"Only when someone touches it." I said it without malice, but my words emerged from my mouth distorted by the throbbing pang in my arm.

"Oh, sorry. You've gained some weight, too, I think," she noted.

"Too many cheeseburgers, I guess," I offered with just the hint of a smile. Asking how she knew I'd be here would be superfluous.

"Well, you don't have to worry about  _anything_ ; I'm on it," she reassured me cheerfully. So, she didn't know.

Alice's visions were usually accurate, but certainly far from infallible.

"I don't know if I'm staying," I clarified, but she waved me off dismissively.

"Charlie, look who's here," she called. Whoa! First-name basis, now?

The man whose name was Charlie but looked almost nothing like my dad walked into the front porch. Clearly attenuated since the last time I'd seen him, clad in his cop uniform, his face worn.

"Hey, Dad."

Charlie's eyes widened, as though he'd seen a ghost. "Bells?"

"I told you," Alice gushed.

As I stepped forward and into Charlie's arms, I silently cursed Alice. She seemed excited, but she thought I would be staying in Forks. If she'd told Charlie I was coming back, she'd surely reassured him that I was staying, also.

 _Dammit, Alice_ , I thought.

Jacob and I had agreed to come home for Harry's funeral, pay our respects to Charlie and Billy's good friend. Then, we would leave again.

"I missed you, kiddo," he whispered inside my hair.

"I know. Me too."

Concern tinged his voice when he asked, "What happened to your arm?"

"My arm?" I echoed. "I tripped. As I was climbing out of the truck. You know me, clumsy as ever." Seeing his expression, I added, "It doesn't even hurt." Charlie didn't doubt my words; I suppose my ability to lie smoothly had improved.

It soon became clear that Alice had bonded with Charlie. Perhaps it was her natural charm, perhaps it was her dazzling vampiric influence one thing was for sure: she had kept him company during her absence, and, most importantly, he had kept him company after Harry Clearwater's death. I had wished for the Dodge to stop acting like a crotchety old man, its engine roaring more than it worked, but the journey Forks had lasted too long, even with the shortened stops.

The conversation was crisp, filled with jokes and funny anecdotes, and I didn't partake in it at all. Even though it was me who had traveled across the US, I felt as though I had no stories to share, my brain suddenly going blank. The sun had almost completely disappeared in the horizon when Alice promptly got up from her chair.

"I should probably be going now," she allowed, picking up her jacket from the back of her chair.

"Won't you be staying for dinner?" Was it me, or did Charlie sound . . . disappointed?

"No, thank you. They are waiting for me at home. Bye, Bella. I'll see you around. At school?"

"See you around."

"She's nice," Charlie murmured as Alice shut the door behind her.

"Yeah, she's good." My eyes scanned the small kitchen, not really looking for anything. "I should go get my stuff from the truck."

"Let me," he offered. "You should probably call Jessica Stanley she's been calling nonstop today." Huh. Jessica Stanley was worried about me? Who would've thought?

"Let me guess. Alice?"

Charlie only shrugged, an innocuous smile tugging at his mouth.

Honestly, I was not in the mood to speak to Jessica. Okay, that was not entirely true I was not in the mood to  _listen_  to her chatter. Spending so much time with only Jacob, essentially, I had gotten used to hi less bubbly demeanor. And, let's face it, he was much more like me than Jessica was.

I settled for a text message:

**The prodigal son has returned.**

_OMG, Bella?_

I suppressed a smirk before I replied:  **In the flesh. Sort of.** _  
_

My cell phone vibrated against my palm; Jessica's message read: _You're back?_   _I don't buy cheap excuses, just so you know. I want details, like, yesterday._ **  
**

 **What do you want to know?** _  
_

_Bella Swan, do not play coy with me._ _**  
**_

I felt blood rising to my cheeks. Apparently, Charlie had reported a false reason of my absence (I thought of how many people  _actually_  bought his story). Jessica, of course, wouldn't have that. Despite her apparent ditziness, she is crazy smart, and with her gossip radar it is hard to fool her.

 **Do not trust small-town gossip. I thought you were smarter than that.** _  
_

_Ha ha._ And thirty seconds later:  _Call me, ASAP._ _  
_

 **Can't now. Sorry.** _  
_

In the meantime, Charlie had already brought my meager luggage into the kitchen where he placed it on the floor, unsure of what to do next.

"Don't worry, Dad, I'll take it from here," I said. "Thanks."

"No problem. Did you talk to Jessica?"

"Oh, yeah."

As I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder and picked up the few plastic bags from Walmart, I asked, "What do you want for dinner, Dad?"

Charlie gaped at me, as if he had forgotten how to speak. "Whatever you'd like, Bells."

"I'm not in the mood for cooking," I muttered as I headed upstairs. "Let's order something."

My bedroom was exactly as I remembered it. I mentally noted that the bed had been made, and the mess that predominated on my desk I faintly remembered dropping a few pens and notebooks in my haste had been replaced by neatness.

I perched on the foot of the bed, sinking onto the soft mattress. A thin layer of dust covered most of the surface of the wood; I absently drew patterns on it with my finger. Across from me, the wind blew against the window, sending branches scraping against it. I wondered how many times I had left that very window open, or at least unlocked; how many times I stirred in my bed, unable to sleep, in anticipation of Edward.

A voice that sounded remarkably like Jacob's scolded, "And how many more times did he sneak into your bedroom like some Peeping Tom?"

I did the only thing I knew to do with voices that kept ordering me around; I shushed it.

The taste of warm pizza on my tongue came as a shock, especially after the string of cheap, grimy diners I had visited with Jacob. The dough was crispy and tasty, and I easily devoured half of it, leaving the rest for Charlie, not complaining about his health and how he should be mindful of what he ate.

I expected him to be angry, but instead a forlorn expression of infinite disappointment twisted his features. And that was far worse than any lecture.

It was funny, how unexpected my parents' reactions would be at any given situation: Reneé would act like the teenager in that scenario insane with worry, probably more than she ought to be. Charlie simply glanced at his plate, self-blame and chagrin flashing in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Dad, I really am."

"It doesn't change the fact that you left," he said. "I want you to be happy. If you can't be happy here"

"I am perfectly happy," I cut in. My words made little sense in my head, much less as I spoke them. "I was an idiot," I conceded after a while. "I should have waited until after graduation."

"Not leaving was never an option?" he jested, his tone laced with bitterness.

"I honestly don't know," I admitted. "I didn't think it through." That was an understatement.

"Are you staying?"

"I don't know," I replied honestly. I'd already blown my chances for a scholarship, and I knew that my road trip had very little to do with that. I could still graduate, and if I worked hard enough for the remainder of the year, maybe I could . . .

Oh, who I was kidding? I could remember telling Jacob that were were teenagers, we were frivolous. Perhaps, for once in my life, I had been correct in my assumption.

"You wanted to go to Washington State, remember?"

"I did."

 _Edward can still give that to you_ , a tiny voice that so resembled Alice's whispered inside my head.  _You can still cross the states, the whole world if you want. We can do it together._

I dropped my gaze to my lap. "I'm tired, I'm going to bed," I said eventually.

Hours later, I found myself pacing up and down my bedroom in a state of unrest. It was mostly dark, save for the soft illumination of the moon a long, wry branch scratched against the length of my window, appearing five times bigger in a twisted, scary shadow on the wall across from me.

My racing thoughts formed one name:  _Victoria._

There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide—

"Bella."

The first thing I realized about the voice was that it was too deep, too gruff to even remotely resemble Victoria's soft purrs and girlish skirls. Which made sense, of course, because Victoria was dead.

I stalked to the window, resting my hands on the pane despite what little luminosity the moon provided, I couldn't descry a thing in the murkiness. I opened the window and examined the tall, black figure that stood below. Sure enough, it was Jake; no shirt or shoes in sight.

"What do you want?" I whispered, knowing he'd hear me. Charlie was asleep in the next room, and if he knew Jacob was here, he'd probably do something crazy. Like introduce him to his shotgun.

"I can't come up," he said hastily.

"Alright then." My voice was harsher than I had intended, and it wasn't as though it was Jacob's fault.

"I know; I hate it, too."

"If you hate it, then why did you insist we came home?" I challenged.

"Harry—"

"I'm talking about before. And spare me with the graduation bull. And I know now that you have a responsibility to Sam and the pack, but somehow you ignored that when we left. And please, don't start with the vampire army." I bristled at the thought of a literal army of bloodthirsty newborn vampires. "Forks is at arm's reach from them. I'd have more chances at making it out of this alive in, I don't know, Utah than I do here. I'm probably as good as dead."

Shock overwhelmed me, leaving me out of breath as I came to this grim realization. Disorganized as the newborns were after Victoria's demise, Edward had made it clear that they were lethal. And they outnumbered the Cullens, perhaps even the werewolf pack. They were an  _army_ , for heaven's sake!

"But you want to stay, too," Jacob protested. "And I need to help my brothers get rid of the leeches you know that. Don't act like it's some stupid caprice. Out of all people,  _you_ 're not the one to talk."

"Good night, Jacob."

Strung by the acid in his words, I thrust the window close, pinching the latch to lock it.


	8. Encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH GOD, FINALLY this story is coming together. What, you don't see it? Oh well. I feel Bella is becoming increasingly OOC. Or maybe she's just growing, and she's distancing herself from the person Meyer made her out to be. Which is a good thing.
> 
> Honestly, I am glad I got to tackle the Sam/Emily relationship. Imprinting is inherently wrong in and of itself. It is the literary embodiment of deprivation of one's personal freedom, and Meyer presents it as romantic. (Imprinting on infants, while equally creepy, is a whole another story.) Sam's "accident" and how it is presented disturbs me. Maybe I have erased the details of the books from my mind, and I've only kept the fact that Sam physically injured Emily — but the thing is, I believe their relationship is abusive. It was born out of addiction, and it is carried on despite a serious instance of physical violence. I can't excuse Sam, even by taking his animalistic impusles into consideration. The fact remains that he continues the relationship, despite the possibility that he injures Emily again.
> 
> One chapter and the epilogue left. Which, by the way, in between Latin, History, Ancient Greek, and Modern Greek Lit, is ideal. Oh, the hardships of being a senior.

  
_'cause they took your loved ones / but returned them in exchange for you_  
Florence + The Machine, "What the Water Gave Me" **  
**  


_How's the hangover going? ;)_

I groaned dramatically at my cell phone. No having the will power to pick it up from the kitchen table, I typed — or, rather, jammed my fingers against the small touch screen — a haste, vague reply:  **I've seen better days.**  Remembering the masked accusation in Jessica's words when she faced me and my hostile behavior that culminated to my completely ignoring life outside of the supernatural realm, I added:  **But I've got some news I know you'll appreciate.**

Predictably, I heard the familiar buzz seconds later.

_WHAT? Do not- WAIT, NO SPOILERS! Damn u, Bella Swan!_

A chuckle escaped my chapped lips. Well, at least  _someone_  was excited.

Edward had left — to my grave and unwelcome disappointment — as soon as I'd slammed the door in his face. I realized that when I ran into my bedroom and straight for the window. Some sick, spiteful thought called for my pride, but I had none, apparently. I expected, I don't know, to see him, standing at the same spot? Staring at the door behind which I'd disappeared moments ago, hoping to see me emerge from it again?

Of course not. I had been pretty clear, hadn't I?

I knew what Jacob would say if he were with me:  _"Isn't this what you wanted?"_  He'd probably have that familiar look of playful betrayal. The words  _puppy dog_  echoed in my head.

I vaguely registered the sound of a door knock.

"Bells?"

"Um, yeah, Dad?"

"Nothing." A beat. "Did you have fun at Jessica's?"

"Oh, yeah. Totally." I stalked to the door, opened it; Charlie was leaning awkwardly against the doorframe. He was clad in a plaid shirt and black jeans — my guess was that these were his clothes from last night. "Were you at Billy's?"

"Yeah . He was all alone, poor guy. Jacob was with some friends, that's what he said. So I drafted Sue," — a timid blush stained his cheeks as his face broke into a smile — "and we kept him company."

"That's nice," I commented. I was happy for Charlie, I really was. He seemed to be getting over the death of his old friend and, in the meantime, helped the people who were also affected by this loss pick up their pieces.

"I stayed until two, three? In the morning," Charlie said. "Sue left earlier; she has kids to take care of." His cheerful smile twisted until it turned bleak and sad. "So I just crashed on the couch."

"Did you catch any reruns of old games?" I prompted.

"Nah. But I  _did_ order that thing . . . the 'Shake Weight'? It's supposed to work."

"Ha, ha. Wait— You're s _erious_?"

* * *

"I swear I'm going to kill that son of a bitch."

Jacob was pacing up and down my bedroom, like a manic animal, trapped but unable to find a way out.

"Well, keep it _down_!" I hissed desperately. The scene: my bedroom, at two a.m., Charlie soundly sleeping in the next room. Jacob had climbed through my window, with a grace I still found unnerving and annoying, acting on some unspoken promise or code. I was grateful for his presence; he was the only person I needed to see at that moment. Well, the only person who understood this madness anyway.

Jacob growled — or made a silent attempt at growling — and sank onto the bed, beside me. "He has no right Not that I didn't expect something like that from him. God, I can't believe you dated this fucker!"

I gasped; Jacob had expressed his dislike — at best; I was well aware he despised the Cullens and their kind, vegetarian or not — for Edward and our relationship, on multiple occasions and without attempting to censor himself. But this was the first time he had indirectly blamed  _me_ for what had transpired between us.

Maybe I  _was_  to blame.

"Well, I'm sorry I didn't know my boyfriend was a sociopath," I spat, to my fickle defense.

There it was again: the constant need to exculpate myself — even though I had no right to.

Jacob looked up at me in disbelief. "That bastard was stalking you . . .  _us_. This is serious. Man, if I were there—"

"Please, save the bully attitude for someone who cares," I implored. "I'm sure Paul or Sam will find this quite amusing."

Jacob scoffed. "I don't even like Paul," he commented. "And I'd like to avoid Sam as much as possible, thank you very much."

"Quil or Embry then."

"It's not funny, Bells." A beat. "And, anyway, what's up with you and murderous, stalker bloodsuckers?"

I laughed mirthlessly. "Maybe I have a sign plastered on my forehead: All monsters welcome." Something in Jacob's expression told me I'd said something stupid. "Damn, I mean. . . ."

"No, no, you're right." Jacob shrugged. "What am I if not a monster?"

Hadn't I had a similar conversation with Edward, a year — or maybe a million years — ago? Hadn't he compared himself to a villain? Not the caricature, comic book kind, but the dark antihero. Hadn't I disputed him?

He was supposed to be different.

Or maybe he wasn't.

"Oh, Jacob. Don't be ridiculous," I rasped. "You're not made a monster by—"

"What?  _Fur?_ "

Fervent anger rose up inside me. Jake, insouciant Jake, would never say something like that. "No," I countered. "You are . . . Jacob, you are  _good_."

Jacob laughed, but it was a joyless sound.

"Maybe. But we're talking about monsters here —  _real_  monsters. Scary-story monsters. Vampires and werewolves. This has nothing to do with our soul, our  _goodness_. This has to do with our nature."

I blinked, blindsided.

"I don't know, maybe that doctor leech was a good man. Maybe he is. But it doesn't change his nature."

"Well, doesn't that make  _humans_  monsters? I mean, most vampires have no regard for human life. We're just their dinner. But aren't  _we_  that way, too? And it isn't about survival for us."

"Yeah, but you were never a sheep or a bear, you know? Edward, and that batshit redhead, and this new bloodsucker were humans once. Like you. Their nature — their new nature — is free of any moral qualms that apply to humans. At some point, they kill because they  _enjoy_ killing."

Jacob was looking away from me now, staring off into a point in the distance — outside the window and beyond the darkness ahead. A crease formed below his forehead, where his brows furrowed, and suddenly he looked too old to be sixteen.

 _Not all of them_ , I wanted to say. But even I wasn't sure if that was true.

What if being a vampire does things to you? Messes up your head? James, Victoria, my nighttime visitor. The strange bond vampires create that can never be broken. The merciless Volturi that didn't limit themselves to the murder of humans, but didn't hesitate to kill their own kind, too — for exemplification of the rest. The wars, endless wars, between the southern covens, over control of the most "fertile" areas.

Maybe they killed because they enjoyed it, encouraged by a sick need within them.

Maybe that was all they inherited from their former selves. Who knows what anyone would do, if they weren't in danger of getting caught?

"Okay. Supposing it isn't your nature that makes you a monster — if your Cullens were as kind and  _different_  as you said, they would have done something, anything, to save the humans they so value."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," I said in a voice that was barely audible.

Jacob turned his head to face me; he looked as though he'd just woken up, seemingly with no recollection of what had just transpired. "What do you want to talk about?"

"The Rabbit."

"No shit. C'mon, that can't be it."

"What, I can't be interested in cars?" A smile broke across his face. "What?"

"Nothing. So, tell me. What do you want to know?"

I shrugged. The truth was, I didn't know what I wanted to know. I didn't know much about cars, and what little I  _did_ , it was thanks to Jacob. Besides, however you looked at it, I was more well-versed in bikes than cars. After all, how many hours had I spent watching Jake fix those rusty, time-old bikes? I mean, I could single out a socket wrench out of the lot. Maybe.

"Never mind," Jacob murmured, seemingly to himself, still smiling. "Let's talk about that time you kissed me."

_Shit._

I was too flabbergasted to ponder the exact time I'd swapped  _Holy crow_  for  _Shit_  — it was the natural resultant of hanging out with a teenage boy, nothing odd — and focused on my furious blushing instead.

"I . . .  _what_?" I squealed.

Jacob grinned cryptically. "I mean," he said casually, "it's kind of a big deal, right?"

I didn't know how to respond to that; does kissing always feel like a big deal? Like fireworks and an epic soundtrack blasting in the background? With Edward, it did, in a way. It felt like a big deal, because who was I, and who was he? It was surreal that  _I_  was kissing  _him_. Whereas kissing Jacob . . . well, it came like everything else I did with him. Naturally.

"I don't know," I replied, with a kind of indifference that fought not to sound forced. "I haven't dwelled much on that."

Jacob frowned instantaneously. "Oh."

"But . . . you know. I didn't really have the time, right? I've got a vampire who'd  _really_  like tokill me; I can't afford to," — Jacob snorted — "mix business with pleasure."

"Is it your job now to run from psychotic bloodsuckers?" he said, not bothering to conceal the sarcasm in his voice.

"Well, it's not like I chose it." We'd probably set a new record each time we switched from light to serious. It was almost comical. "And it's not like I was lying either."

"It's not fair, you know."

I  _did_ know. Still, I whispered, "What isn't fair?"

"The way you just randomly remember you need me.  _That's_  what isn't fair."

"I don't—" I choked out. "I don't  _randomly_  remember— How could you say that?" The implication behind his words, the fact that he doubted I genuinely cared for him. . . .

"Just try to see things from  _my_ perspective, hmm? Is it too much to ask for you to at least  _acknowledge_ your feelings for me?"

This conversation was taking a turn for the more complicated.

"I, um . . . I don't know if this is the right time to discuss this."

"Oh, spare me the formalities — we have Dr. Dracula for that." Bitterness and hatred gleamed in his eyes; I knew at least one was directed at me, I could only hope I was mistaken on the other. "It's his fault, isn't it?" he asked eventually.

"Whose fault is what?" A rhetorical question, of course.

"Cullen's." A pointless answer.

Inadvertently, my hand shot up to my chest, as though to stop the blood from flowing through the open hole.

I thought we were done with this.

"I should probably just shut up about it," Jacob murmured unhappily. Perched as he was beside me, he began to fidget with his hands, like he was debating whether to stay or get the hell out.

"How come no patrol tonight?" I asked cheerfully. "Is Sam in a good mood or something?"

"The exact opposite," Jacob admitted eagerly, clinging to the opportunity of a harmless subject. "Leah is, um, being a pain in the ass. Working with bitter ex-girlfriends is bad for your health."

"I don't know about the girlfriend part, but, yeah, you're right."

"Huh. I mean, I  _know_ her father died, and people don't deal with grief the same way," he said, before being misunderstood, "but she's been this way since Sam broke up with her. Frankly, it's exhausting."

"So what happened today?"

"Well, her bitching and moaning was already hard to get used to, but we kinda got it, at first. I mean, to know that your ex fell in love with your cousin because of an inadvertent werewolf ritual? And you have to be a part of this madness. So, we just came to terms with it, with  _her_. But,  _God_ , her internal monologue is draining the life out of us, slowly and painfully. Sam got tired of dealing with her bullshit, and none of us really blame him. So, yeah, Leah's taken over from me."

"You don't sound too bothered," I noted.

"Well, it's not like I hate it."

"To be honest, I don't completely blame Leah," I said.

"You mean you haven't  _met_ Leah."

I chuckled. "Please. She can't be  _that_ bad."

* * *

It was Monday afternoon, and Jacob had driven me to the Rez to officially meet the pack.

"You're gonna like them. Well, all but Paul. You already know Quil and Embry," he'd told me. And, as though he'd been reading my thoughts, he added, "And they're gonna like you, too." It wasn't an accidental omission, of course, that he didn't mention either Paul or Leah.

Our first stop was a lovely little shed, on the outskirts of the reservation. It was small, but cozy; rectangular flower beds framed it: lilies and clovers some blue buds whose name I didn't know.

"So, which one of the golden boys lives here?"

"Sam."

"Ha. Oh, wait. You're not kidding." Sam could not be living in this house. I expected someone Jacob's age, one of his friends, who'd probably have a parent to care for the garden. Sam struck me as the kind of independent kind of guy that wouldn't rely on his mom or dad. Between the roughness he emitted and his responsibilities as the Alpha, it seemed a little improbable that he'd be interested in  _gardening_ , of all things.

"Well, he doesn't live here  _alone_ , if that's what you were wondering about."

"Emily," I guessed. "They live together. Jake, I don't know, if I were Leah, I'd be bitter, too."

"Bitter and Leah aren't  _quite_  the same. C'mon." He crossed to the door — it was a beautiful, wooden creation that formed an arch at the top — and pushed it open.

"Don't you think we should knock?" I mumbled, but Jacob waved me off with a subtle shake of his head.

The interior of the house was just as lovely as the exterior: the front room was mostly kitchen, and resembled Billy's house in that regard — I figured most houses at the reservation were built that way. A medium-sized, round table was the first thing you saw as you entered. Behind it, a wooden counter — sparkling clean: the oven, a fridge, a sink and a washing machine were neatly lined next to each other. The fragrant smell of chicken and roast vegetables arose from the oven. I was already drooling. A woman stood with her back to us, rinsing a plump tomato in the sink.

_Emily._

I could see what Sam — or wolf-Sam, anyway — had seen in her, even by just looking at her back: she had long, slick raven hair that rippled down her back, and her figure was slender yet curvy.

"Shit," Jacob hissed. I jerked my head to the side, poised to spot an intruder — no one was there. "I almost forgot. Don't sta—"

I didn't have time to question his half-order, because Emily spun around, tomato still in hand. "Oh hi, Jacob," she greeted heartily. Her eyes lingered a little on my face before she wiped her hands on her apron and strode forward. "Let me guess," she said cheerfully. "You're Bella."

I nodded vigorously, but a lump in my throat made it impossible to form a coherent response.

 _Don't_ stare _._

"Well, don't just stand there — come on, sit." She pulled one of the chairs for me to sit.

"Th— Thanks," I murmured, remembering my manners. Now I understood what Jacob had said — or what he'd tried to say.

Emily's face was like the two distorted halves of the same whole: one half was beautiful, just like the rest of her; the other was marred by three red lines, from her hairline to her chin. Scars.

I'd seen werewolves' paws before. I'd seen the weapons they could turn into.

"So,  _you're_  the vampire girl," she said good-naturedly.

"So,  _you're_  the wolf girl."

Emily laughed, a joyous, melodic sound."Ι guess I am," she said and lifted her left arm: as she waved her fingers, I made out the gleam of a gemstone on her ring finger. "Officially," she added, and her disfigured face shone with her bright smile.

 _Imprint_.

The word echoed in my head. Imprinting. Wasn't it a deprivation of personal freedom, according to Jacob? But Emily looked so blissful, so genuinely happy. . . .

How was I supposed to believe imprinting was a curse, rather than a blessing?

"Are Embry and Quil coming, too?" Emily asked. "What about Jared and Paul" No mention of Leah.

"Jared is busy being in  _love_." Jacob snorted. "I couldn't care less about Paul. But you can always count on Embry and Quil, when it comes to food."

"The kettle calling the pot black," Emily and I said in unison. Our gazes met for a brief moment of stunned surprise, before we broke into laughter.

"Oh, great," Jacob moaned. "Make fun of me."

"You're a big boy," Emily chuckled. "You'll get over it."

Jacob tapped his fingers rhythmically against the table. "Somethin' smells delicious," he hummed.

"Well,  _manners_ ," Emily intoned. "You're going to have to wait for the rest."

_Okay, so where is the catch?_

When Jacob had disclosed the story behind the love triangle that had estranged Emily and Leah, I hadn't thought it through. My exhaustion and following kidnapping by Victoria and a few other . . .  _distractions_  had kept me from putting much or any thought at all into Sam Uley's knotty love life.

But Emily was a homewrecker. Okay, maybe that was a bit dramatic . . . but it wasn't far from being the truth. Leah was her cousin, her best friend, and accoding to Jacob, she was still in love with Sam. Maybe — to him and to the rest of the pack and even to Sam himself — she was just being the bitter ex-girlfriend, jealous and clung to the past. But when someone you love, and who you thought loved you back, leaves you, seemingly on a whim, it is hard to just move on.

I would know.

Emily had no qualms about hurting Leah; not knowing about imprinting certainly complicated things, but still . . .  _Sam_ had imprinted on Emily, not the other way around. The thing was . . . Emily was — or appeared to be — one of the nicest people I'd met. Jacob's story and my first impression of her were entirely contradictory.

When Emily set a flower-patterned glass bowl of cookies before me and offered me the most sincere smile, I decided to trust the latter.

"Where the fuck have you been, Black?"

I whirled around at the voice; two teenagers were standing at the threshold, tall and broad-shouldered like Jacob — I recognized them as Quil and Embry. Well, their faces did seem kind of familiar, so I naturally assumed it was them. The only other pack members I'd met were Sam and Paul, and they'd left such lasting impressions, that I was certain I wouldn't forget them.

Embry, the one who had spoken, glanced at Emily with the kind of look a naughty child would give to their mother after being caught. It was quite comical to see a six-foot tall tall hulking, whose part-time pastime involved exploding into a gargantuan wolf, shrink at the gaze of a woman barely a few years older than me.

"Sorry," he mumbled, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. "Hi, Bella."

"Hi, Embry. Hey, Quil."

Quil nodded friendlily. "I hope you haven't started without us," he scoffed pleasantly.

Emily untied her apron and set her on the counter. "So, where's Sam? Paul?"

Anyone not knowing about the imprint would have thought Paul was the scum of the earth, judging by the way Emily pronounced his name, which wasn't necessarily a too far-fetched assumption. Perhaps they would have thought Sam to be the male Mother Teresa. Such was the adoration in her voice.

"Paul is . . . no idea. Sam is on his way. Pack business."  _Leah business._ "Oh, and Jared is . . . um, with Kim. As usual." Quil rolled his eyes, like he found it incredibly annoying that a boy would want to spend time with his girlfriend. A smirk of understanding lifted the corners of Emily's lips, though.  _Oh._  Jared had imprinted on Kim.

Embry sunk onto the chair beside me. He picked up a cookie and flung it in his mouth. "Don't worry," he said with a wink, "we're not mad at you for stealing Jake."

It was as though all blood had drained from my body and shot up straight to my face. "Uh . . . well,  _you_  did the stealing  _first_ , so."

"Good one," Embry said, munching the cookie.

"These aren't for you," Emily snapped, pushing the bowl away from him. "It'll spoil your appetite."

Embry glanced at Quil, then Jacob — all three of them let out a bark of laughter. I couldn't help but crack a smile, also. For a wolf girl, she sure didn't know much about their stomachs' endurance.

"At least I tried," she sighed, but her words hung midsentence. Something shifted in her gaze; the change was instantaneous. Her face lit, a smile — just as genuine, but more . . .  _more —_ broke across her face, her entire demeanor shifted. Like she was the moon, and  _he_  was the earth, pulling her in a constant orbit.

Sam Uley strode across the small kitchen, looking like anyone like himself. His hard, tight expression was warm, his dark eyes were seemingly illuminated by a glow that erased everything that wasn't Emily. No, Emily wasn't the moon; she was the sun, and Sam was a blind seeing the light for the first time. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and placed soft kisses on her cheek. Right on her scars.

Quil and Embry shifted uncomfortably, clearing their throats in their curled fists; Jacob averted his eyes in revulsion. I imitated his action, but not for the same reason. I felt like I shouldn't be watching, shouldn't even be there. Like what was transpiring before my eyes was something entirely private.

* * *

The houses at the reservation were uniform but not lined like a typicsl suburban block: little, rundown sheds and small yards with brown, parched barren grass that stretched before and around them.

Jacob and I had left Emily's house, politely declining her invitation to lunch, and walked around the Rez, occasionally pausing each time Jacob came across a familiar face.

"What do you think about Emily?" he asked at one point.

"She's . . . oh, she's lovely. She's really nice. I . . . to be honest, I didn't expect her to be like that at all—"

"How did you expect her to be, leech-lover?"

I whirled around at the sneering sound.

_First impressions don't matter._

My first impression of Leah Clearwater had been unduly short, so it didn't count. Or perhaps it did, and my mental delirium was simply the berserk manifestation of the truth.

I sensed Jacob tense beside me.

"Oh, look. It's Leah Clearwater being a bitch."

Leah lifted her arms in feigned defense. "Oh, okay, big, bad wolf, protector of the white girls."

"Do me a favor, and shut up."

"Oh  _okay_ , knight in shining armor. Wouldn't want you to get all hot and bothered and pull a Sam on me." Laughter. "Oh, but wait —  _I_ could take you."

That moment, I felt stubborness surge inside me. Not because of Leah herself, but also because of the direction of her mocking her relationship with Jacob wasn't the best; however I was certain she harbored a dislike just for me. Many times in the past I'd allowed Edward to defend me — perhaps I  _needed_  someone to defend me — but it wasn't like that now. Maybe it was Leah's presence — strong and independent — but maybe it was something else entirely, something much more personal. An internal change.

"What's your problem?" I said, maintaining the calmness in my voice.

Leah shifted her focus to me. A spark of interest shone in her eyes, and her lips curled into a snarl. It was unlike Victoria's grotesque grimace; this was the bitter expression of a battered soul.  _What was her problem?_ Her problem was that she inadvertently caused her father's death, that she was thrust into a world in which she had no interest in participating, that she was somehow supposed to accept the twisted ethic that took away the man she loved.

The snarl in Leah's face curled upwards, until it transformed itself into something that resembled a smile. "I don't have a problem," she said. I bristled; there was a sickly sweetness dripping from her words, the kind that prolonged a final blow. She studied me for a moment.

She was gone the next.

The goosebumps on the back of my neck subduced only when Leah disappeared behind the dense foliage of trees. I could have sworn, for a fleeting second, that I heard the ragged breathing of an animal and the thump of its graceful footsteps on the forest floor.

It wasn't until later, much later, when the sound of waves crushing against rock and the chilly, Forks breeze registered, that I regained the ability to talk.

"What happened to Emily?" I inquired as we walked across the sand. The image of her beautiful face, marred by the thick red lines, was still potent in my memory.

"Sam." Jacob cast a sideways glance at me — I returned it with wide eyes.

I waited for him to elaborate; when he didn't, I prompted, "What?"

"Sam injured Emily." Jacob uttered these words so casually, like he had just said something like: "Sam is a werewolf" or even "Water is wet".

"Wha—  _Why?_ "

"He lost control." Again with the matter-of-fact responses. I wondered if Jacob had been so desensitized to violence and impulse that he was no longer appalled by their gist.

Shouts of protest kept springing to my lips, but I could utter none of them; in the end, I managed to choke out, "He lost . . . w _hy_  is she still with him, then? I mean . . . that's  _abuse_."

"I think you are underestimating the power of the imprinting, Bella," Jacob said briskly, like the words were leaving his mouth on some peculiar will of their own. He didn't like it — that much I knew — but there was a defensive nuance in his voice. As though he felt the need to prove a point.

My understanding of imprinting hadn't increased since that so filled with events night, when Jacob had first mentioned it to me. But, not confronted with the lassitude of a long drive from one state to another, I could understand this: the imprint was strong enough to deprive one of personal freedom and choice. Literally. "I think I am not," I countered. "Which is what makes it so . . .  _abnormal_. It's like a lobotomy, a brain-wipe."

Jacob shrugged, like there was no point in arguing with me, like I  _didn't get it._

"If Sam loves Emily so much, then he'd," — I flinched at my inability to word my cluster of scattered thoughts — "he would  _leave_."

Wouldn't that be the right thing to do?

There were people who loved someone — loved them in an honest, uncomplicated,  _human_  kind of way . . . yet they hurt them. And they didn't stop hurting them.

Yet no one would step back.

Wasn't love a series of compromises?

 _Well, there's a difference between compromise and pain._ If Sam and Emily's love was as great as everyone seemed to believe — a love story for the ages — Sam would have chosen solitude over hurting the single thing that defined him. Wouldn't hurting Emily be defeating the purpose of imprinting? Love, _human_ love is selfish; but how can something that completely abstains from the essence of being human, be so egoistic?

"You don't know how it is, the imprint," Jacob retorted, but he sounded resigned. "Sam would die for Emily; he could kill for her. And he will never forgive himself for—"

"Oh, yeah. Poor Sam. It must be terrible for him," I sneered. "How is killing for the sake of 'the one you love' right or even moral?"

That moment, inadvertently, an image sprung to my mind. It was the day of Harry's funeral; such a big day, filled with events — it was natural that I'd forgotten about my brief encounter with Sam Uley. The specifics of our conversation were blurry in my mind, but I  _knew_  I'd said something that had offended him. More than that, it had hurt him.

"That's why he wanted you to steer clear of me in the beginning," I said, my voice small. "So that you didn't do to me what he did to Emily."

_"So maybe I should have let him kill you then."_

_"Why would he kill me?"_

_"Now you understand, huh, Swan?"_

_"Jacob isn't_  you _."_

Sam knew of the way Jacob felt about me, knew what he'd do if he'd hurt me. Suddenly, I could see many things Sam had said or done under a different light, and I realized that my hatred wasn't directed at him — it shouldn't be. It the imprint. What would happen if Jacob imprinted on some unknown girl? I'd wondered about that before, but it was a fantasy born out selfishness and panic. I'd been scared of losing Jacob, not of what would actually happen to him. He would become a non-being, a zombie, eternally infatuated with the formless girl from my fantasy.

It could happen any day, and there would be nothing I could do to prevent it from happening. Crippling, numbing terror burgeoned in my chest.

We settled on a driftwood by the ocean. "It must be really strong," I murmured to no one in particular, "if she can't bring herself to leave."

"Emily?"

I shrugged. Emily. Me. The imprint. Star-crossed lovers. Obsessive infatuation or infatuated obsession?

"Hey!" someone called, interrupting my train of my dispersed thoughts. We both turned our heads; it was an agitated Embry, jogging toward us, occasionally frantically waving.

"What's going on?" Jacob asked, alarmed, as he rose from the driftwood.

"The bloodsucker," Embry said in between short, sharp breaths, unable to contain his excitement. "The one in Bella's room. He's in our lands."

 _He's in our lands._ My heart leaped into my mouth.

"No shit!" Jacob exclaimed, suddenly overcome by a strange enthusiasm. "Does Sam need me? I can't leave Bella here."

"He needs everyone  _now._  Don't worry; apparently, the trail the leech left to the completely opposite direction." He turned to me. "Do you think you can go to Emily's on your own? It's kind of an emergency."

"No, no. It's okay," I said.

"Are you sure?" he pressed half-heartedly; Embry elbowed him impatiently.

"Yeah, yeah," I egged him on. "Go get him."

Not before long, they had disappeared behind the grove of trees, undoubtedly shifting into ther wolf forms. Letting out a prolonged sigh, I urged myself forward. I ought to run, probably. But Embry had said something about the vampire running to an entirely other direction. I would be safe. I didn't have to run.

I would be safe.

Something alerted me, a shift of the sand maybe. Whatever it was, it propelled me to run. It was the infallible instinct of survival, but sometimes even instincts are wrong.

In a blast of petrifying realization, I spun around.

I was face to face with a man, or perhaps a teenage boy. His age was vague, but I doubted he was more than twenty. He looked eerily familia, with a face too handsome to be human, shining blond hair, and a tall, mascular frame. Dark, almost black eyes were fixated intently on me.

I blinked.

 _What if the last thing you do before you_   _die is blink? Have you lost your chance at a cognizant last look at the world?_

Never looking away, the vampire said, in a gentle, honeyed voice, "You killed her."

I was about to meet my nighttime visitor.


	9. Multitasking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have much to say for this chapter other than its size. I'm only going to point out that I pasted a sample of my writing from this fic to (awesome site, by the way), and the analyzer told me I write like Leo Tolstoy. Take that as you will.

  
_i_ _t's the same when i leave and when i arrive  
_ Zola Jesus, "Poor Animal"

 

 

Warm, brilliant sunlight spilled through the curtains for the first time in months.

Gleaming rays shimmered through the window, and I lay mesmerized, staring at the tiny specks of dust that floated around me in the drowned with light room. Surrounded as I was by a cocoon of blankets and pillows, I felt safer than I had in a very long time.

Stretching my arms above my head, I felt my fingers grazing against an object hanging from the headboard.

Jacob's dreamcatcher.

It had failed to shoo away the nightmares before, but, to my utter surprise, I did not wake once to the blood-curdling sound of my own muffled screaming.

I sighed and tossed the covers to the side, basking in the warm sunlight. The bright glow of the sun erased the events of the past week from my mind I had never left Forks; Victoria hadn't caught me, and she hadn't been massing together an army of newborn vampires; Harry Clearwater hadn't died.

Edward didn't love me. (I was still certain  _that_  one was a figment of my imagination just another side-effect of the morphine. Merely a dream. No realer than the hallucination I'd been feeding in the past months.)

Today was Harry's funeral.

I still wasn't sure whether we'd be staying or not; there was school I needed to think about, but my return to Forks High was the last thing I'd want to do at this point. After the thoroughly distracting spring that followed the blankness of winter, it would surely be hard to adjust to high school–mode and Edward Cullen's disorienting presence.

Truth be told, I was selfish. I didn't consider what Jacob's absence meant for the pack. In actuality, it hadn't crossed my mind not even after our not-so-friendly meeting with Paul Lahote. The coming of vampires in Forks wasn't my fault, I suppose. But Victoria's smugness and ignorance of the contracts between vampires and werewolves cost the innocence of many Quileute boys. And I surely had played a part in that. Of course, my selfishness, my sick need to keep my best friend for myself, didn't allow me to think of the  _purpose_  of Sam's pack. Jacob was bound, honor and duty confining him, and I hadn't bothered to acknowledge that.

Some friend I was.

And then there was Charlie. After our brief conversation last night, we had settled for silence. In both our cases, it had always been enough to sufficiently convey our feelings. But what did he truly think of my rushed escape? What did he think when he saw his daughter, a new injury added to her collection of older ones, face worn after nearly being murdered by a vicious vampire? Though, he wasn't exactly aware of that last fact.

What of college and my future? Would I toss it away on some impulse? Victoria was dead. There was no reason to escape, to run away now.

If it weren't for that  _one_  stupid complication. . . .

"Bells?" a croaked voice called.

I heaved a sigh.

"Yes, Dad?"

"You up?"

I glanced at the digital clock on my left eight fifteen. "Yes. Are you alright?"

It was a silly question, of course. How could he be alright?

"I need some u help?"

The sizzling sound of oil on a frying pan greeted me when I entered the kitchen. The smell of eggs and bacon hovered in the small kitchen, mixed wit the unmistakable scent of a smoking burner rising from the stove. Normally, this would induce one of my 'Mom moments':  _You need to be careful with your diet, Dad. You aren't a teenager, Dad. No more black coffee and takeouts, Dad._  Today, though, I couldn't bear to scold him.

"Kitchen troubles?" Charlie shrugged apologetically. "It's okay," I reassured him. I stalked toward the stove to examine the situation. The eggs were black, scorched from the heat of the burner, but the bacon could be saved. How it would taste, though, was an ambiguous matter.

"I tried my luck while you were gone, but I failed, as you can see."

"I see that." I smiled at a burnt egg. "Sue?"

"Yeah."

"How is she?"

"Like shit." A beat. "Sorry."

"It's okay," I murmured; I had gotten used to colorful language. "I'll make new eggs."

"Okay," Charlie breathed, obviously relieved. "Sunny side up?"

"Sure."

We had breakfast in silence, though it was not as terrible as last night. I reveled at the taste of fresh, homemade eggs in my mouth and the flavor of balmy orange juice against my palate.

I had almost forgotten what home felt like.

"Are you okay?" I queried after a while, waver creeping into my voice.

"No," Charlie answered honestly.

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

* * *

A new text message was waiting for me when I got back to my bedroom, this time on my old device.

 _Tomorrow, my place._  The sender was Jessica.

I smirked at the screen before typing my reply:  **You're giving me the third degree or what?**

An almost unfamiliar jingle and: _Oh, this is nothing. ;) **  
**_

**Well, it will have to wait. Sorry.**

_UGH._

I set the phone aside and crossed to my closet.

I only had four dresses, all hanging on the left corner. One was an impulse purchase I had made at fifteen, two were gifts from Alice. The last one, a pristine blue, fell gauchely against the wall a surprise present from Edward.

I hadn't worn blue in months.

I fumbled through the clothes, hit for the first time by the eternal "girl problem What to wear?

A knitted dark grey blouse and simple black pants lay on my bed a quarter of the hour later. Satisfied with my choice, I stalked out of the room, looking for Charlie. He was downstairs and not alone, by the sound of it.

"No permission to go with her", "What are you to her?", and "Stay away, boy" was all I could make out, and for a moment I was almost certain it was Jacob to whom he was talking.

A soft, honeyed voice said something in reply, and I felt my knees tremble and my heart jumble inside my chest. I'd recognize that voice anywhere. "I know what you may think of me, but I deeply care for your daughter. I know she must need someone to keep her company."

"You know nothing," I said through gritted teeth. Steel determination pulsated through my veins; I was not going to let my weakness show.

Edward raised his head, his piercing golden eyes meeting mine. Surely I had startled him. Sadness and surprise clouded his features. A muscle on his cheek leaped as he clenched his jaw.

Charlie didn't wait for an elaboration. "You heard her, Cullen," he grunted. "The door is over there."

"If that's what you want," he murmured, his voice tight and forlorn. Ever the tragic hero.

"I will not have this conversation here," I snapped. Edward nodded firmly; before I could make sense of the motion, the door had shut behind him.

"What does he want here?" Charlie howled, wasting no time. I cast a reluctant glance at him; he was positively fuming.

 _Okay, Bella. Be honest._  "He, um, he knew I'd gotten injured, and he was probably worried. . . ." I trailed off.

"How did he know?"

"I honestly don't know." Now that I thought about it, there was no logical explanation as to how Edward knew where I was and what had happened to me. Not that there wasn't one at all. But how could I explain to Charlie that Alice Cullen's clairvoyance was the culprit? "Alice probably told him," I shrugged.

"Funny, 'cause she didn't mention that to me."

"Maybe she didn't want to have you worry," I offered.

"Maybe."

"Don't worry; I'm not interested anymore," I reassured him.

Charlie looked down at me in obvious doubt. I had claimed I didn't want Edward in the past; I had fled to Phoenix afterward. "Good." A beat. "I don't want to see you get hurt," he said warmly.

"Me neither, Dad."

Afterward, as I pulled on the clothes I'd hastily picked, I realized that Edward's visit had awoken something in my body I could feel it in the fluttering of my battered heart and the pleasant weight that had settled in the pit of my stomach.

* * *

The drive to the reservation was quiet, for the most part; Charlie had gaped at the new truck ("It's a Dodge," I'd told him, hoping it would hold some meaning to him.), and he'd furrowed his eyebrows as though he didn't like the trade. I hoped he didn't see it as a rejection of his gift.

"The Chevy needed repairs we couldn't afford," I'd lied smoothly. "Trading it with another truck simply came cheaper."

The Clearwaters' home was much like any other house at the reservation, with its low, cinder block–covered roof and plywood on top of the small porch, and I would have missed it if it weren't for the small group of children running outside. I felt like a complete outsider as I dismounted the Dodge and stalked across the road with Charlie.

Leah Clearwater was not what I had anticipated, not the fierce, unrefined she-wolf. At least not today. Today she looked bleak, grief-stricken, as thick tears welled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks. By her side stood a boy, a year or two younger than Jacob. I instantly recognized him; he was Seth Clearwater, Leah's brother. When he lifted his gaze, his chocolate-brown eyes bore into mine; there was no hostility in them, no indication that he blamed me, the "leech-lover" for what had happened to him and to his father.

"Bella Swan," a gravelly voice called from behind me.

I spun around and gasped when I saw the hulking frame looming over me, dark eyes glowering at me. "Sam," I breathed as I took a small step back, distancing myself from his authoritarian figure, the Alpha wolf. Suddenly, anger began to rise in my chest, making my blood boil. My tone was cool and almost blithe, though, when I said, "Here to chastise me for stealing your lapdog?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "I did, in fact. It was a nice way to thank the person that found you when you were lost." If it had been a metaphor, it would have been a hackneyed one; but his words were most certainly literal, and they stung.

"Well, thank you for finding me," I snapped.

"You shouldn't put the blame on me, Swan," he continued, dauntless. "Blame those leeches you worship."

I clenched my fist, poised. "I do not worship them," I hissed. "And I  _am_  blaming you and your stupid pack rules kept him away from me. Don't act like he wanted that." I knew it then, fully and completely, that I was no better than a bratty child, mad because Bad Sam had stolen one of my most precious toys.

"So maybe I should have let him kill you then." His voice was no louder or more intimidating than a soft growl, but it still made me recoil.

"Why would he kill me?" I asked in a small voice.

I recalled Edward's altercation with Jacob, how he had essentially insinuated that his primate instincts posed a threat to me. And even before that, I remembered Jacob shaking so hard beside me, the very edges of his body blurring; how he transformed into a gargantuan beast in the blink of an eye. And, last of all, I remembered Emily's story, and how her once beautiful face was now marred by the scars Sam had inflicted on her.

"Now you understand, huh, Swan?"

My eyes turned to slits. "Jacob isn't  _you_ ," I sniped unkindly; the instant my words came out I regretted them.

The impact was instantaneous on his face. "You shouldn't talk about things you have no knowledge of," he said, his voice tight.

And with that he left.

"Bella."

I whirled my head around at the general direction of the voice. "Jake?" Sure enough, Jacob was standing mere feet away from me, leveling his intent gaze at me, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. "Hey, you're wearing pants," I observed, my voice becoming shrill.

In response, Jacob strode forward and picked me up into his sturdy arms. We hadn't exactly parted in the best of ways in fact, I'd slammed a window to his face, kind of, in order to avoid talking to him. But whatever little animosity lurked bitterly inside me, it evaporated with his touch. As I buried my face into the crook of his neck and breathed his earthy scent, I became aware of the soothing effect his presence had always had on me. A warm sensation pooled in my belly, and I breathed a sharp sigh.

"Walk with me," he murmured into my hair, his hot breath tickling my scalp.

"I thought you'd want to be here."

"I hate funerals and I can't stand Sam, so. . . ."

"Well, that seals the deal then."

I could only start breathing normally again once we were hidden behind the grove of trees.

"I meant to come up yesterday," he said as he kicked a fallen branch. "But Sam was—"

"I know. I acted like a selfish idiot, I guess."

"What are we going to do?" he asked after a while.

"I don't know." And I really didn't. The distance from it all had made it far easier for me to impulsively decide that I wanted to go on with "my life on the road", but struck as I was by the immediacy of the aftermath it would have on Charlie, it turned out to be decidedly more complicated than I'd anticipated.

"You're staying, aren't you?" he asked, somehow excluding himself from the situation.

"I think so. Until graduation, at least."

"Right. What was the point, then?" he inquired, echoing my thoughts, leveling his questioning gaze at me.

"I just wanted my friend back," I admitted, my voice cracking.

"Your friend."

I sighed. Despite everything that had gone down, I  _did_  get my friend back, even if it had been for a little while. When I wasn't soaking in terror and guilt it had bee even fun, I suppose. "Remember when I got drunk?"

Jacob gave a bark of laughter. "Oh, yeah. I do remember. That was ridiculous."

"I want to leave again," I said honestly.

"After you graduate — and after I kick some bloodsucker ass."

"Hey, what about  _your_  graduation? With all these absences, I'm surprised they still haven't expelled you for truancy," I teased. I was surprised they still hadn't expelled  _me_  for that reason.

"Nah, they won't. I mean, not that they  _wouldn't_ , but I'm thinking about dropping out anyway"

" _WHAT?_  Jacob Black, you will not I forbid you to We shouldn't have gone; now you've missed school because of me. Oh my  _God_ , I am so inconsiderate!"

"Bells? Bells. It's okay. You didn't do this. Most of the pack members have dropped out, it's no big deal," Jacob said dismissively, like this was  _actually_  true. "Except for Seth, obviously. There is no way in hell that Leah's gonna let him do that."

"Poor Seth," I muttered, the image of the orphaned teenager and his sister turning over in my mind. "His father dead and now this."

"It's horrible," Jacob agreed.

"I don't want to see him," I allowed. It was out of line, admittedly irrelevant and perhaps offensive to the memory of Harry Clearwater that Edward's presence in my mind was so all-encompassing and demanding of my attention that it didn't allow me to give some thought to the man and his grieving family. It was silly, I knew it; I was never that that close with Harry or Sue, much less with Leah and Seth. But Charlie was, and Harry's death had affected him a lot. And yet here I was, being terrified of having to face Edward again.

It wasn't  _him_  in particular I was afraid of it was my reaction to his presence.

_"Do I dazzle you?"_

"Well, good," Jacob said, disrupting my train of thought.

"Predictable," I snorted, smiling.

"Be happy." I nearly choked on my own saliva at the sound of Edward's voice. I had figured that this madness would stop now that he was back, that he would at least live my sanity alone after turning up what fragile balance I had conjured up in his absence. But  _no_.

I told myself it was his almost pleading tone that pushed me forward it made me feel less guilty, at least, even though I had nothing to feel guilty of.

I told myself it wasn't the way his eyes caught the sunlight seeping from the cover of foliage that lifted my good arm so I could cup the side of his face, and it was  _certainly_  not the way my stomach fluttered at the sound of his sharp intake of breath.

"You're sort of beautiful," I blurted out.

"Have you hit your head since I last saw you?"

I laughed mirthlessly. "I'm not sure."

Happiness was or had been a foreign, almost alien concept without Edward. Many times during our short summer of bliss together had I contemplated life without him; each and every one of them I had felt despair blossoming in my heart, moisture filling my lids. But Edward what always been there to refute my fears, one promise of eternal love at a time.

And he'd convinced me; for a time I was certain that he wouldn't leave me, that he wasn't a delusion that would evaporate just as easily as it had bolted into my life.

After he left, I had told myself that happiness was unattainable; but his soft plead was so earnest, so honest, that I had no choice but obey.

Precariously, my lips met Jacob's, lingering for an amount of time that would be considered chaste I felt him twitch slightly as I pulled back, my cheeks flushed in brilliant crimson.

"That was random," Jacob said. "And you certainly  _did_  hit your head."

"Well,  _Victoria_  did," I elucidated. Jacob flinched at the sound of her name I'd only meant to joke, but using that particular incident was poor thinking. I recalled the pained expression on his face during Victoria's torture session and bristled. Unable to figure out what to say, I traced the bark of a tree with my finger.

"What?" I asked when I saw the look on his face, something between coyness and smugness flashing in his warm eyes.

"Nothing," he replied. "You just . . . kissed me. What am I supposed to make of  _that_?"

I contemplated this for a moment; a strange urge to pursue "happiness", emanating from Edward's gentle solicitation, pushed me to kiss Jacob. It had seemed to be the logical thing to do at the time or it was simply the most  _immediate_  way to attain that "happiness".

I didn't know if I felt happy all the kiss seemed to have done was to add to the late complication that had arisen in my otherwise easy relationship with Jake. Yet, for that short moment our "chaste" kiss lasted, I felt a kind of blessedness that was unfamiliar to me. It wasn't like with Edward; it was like breathing.

"That I hit my head?" I offered. A hint of a smile played at the corners of his lips.

After, when Charlie asked about my whereabouts, I stammered and faltered and eventually sputtered out that Jacob had my razor and that I needed to get it from his house then I'd helped him with some Algebra quiz he had for school (because "he has a lot to catch up on"), and we'd gotten distracted.

Which was an accurate description.

* * *

Part of me wished for the chug of the truck's engine to stop and for thick, grey smoke to steam off its hood, there in the middle of the highway. That way I'd find a legitimate excuse to go to Jacob's and avoid the most recent bane of my existence: high school.

I knew it, I was overreacting. More than that, even: I was whining. After so many near-death experiences, shouldn't I crave the certainty and safety of high school? And it wasn't as if I had anything to worry about. My first experience with Forks High School was the best possible, and — even though I hadn't really thought of them — I kind of missed my friends.

"It's nothing," I murmured to myself, repeating my mantra, "only high school."

The maroon-colored brick structures materialized from behind the sparse grove of trees and shrubs, and I could already spot some of the younger students hastening into the various, numbered buildings.

I hadn't even clambered out of the Dodge when I felt a hand land on my shoulder. I gasped as I spun around, expecting to see Edward hovering over me, gazing down at me with that forlorn look I'd grown to hate.

It wasn't him.

"Hey, Bells! Sweet ride," Mike Newton said, squeezing my shoulder and ruffling my hair. "Where the hell have you been?" Upon looking at my casted arm, he exclaimed, "What happened to you?"

Before I had a chance to form a coherent reply, another voice boomed, "'Sup, Swan?" I peeked from underneath my hair that had been scattered by Mike's hand and saw Tyler Crowley jogging toward us, his backpack casually hoisted over his shoulder. "Been a stranger."

"Oh,  _now_  you remembered us." I couldn't help but smirk at the feigned irritation in Jessica's voice; the smile grew into a bright grin when I saw Angela Weber following on her heels.

Angela was the closest thing I had to a best friend here in Forks my "coopetition" with Jessica, kind avoidance attempts of Mike, and friendly acquaintance with the rest (well, excluding Lauren) were partly accountable, but Angela and I had bonded significantly more than I had with the others. I cannot say that I would ever bond with Jessica or Mike each possessing traits I found pestering at times.

With a pang of guilt, I realized that I hadn't called or texted her since I came back. She didn't seem to mind, though; her hug was more of a friendly squeeze around my shoulders, which I appreciated.

Surprisingly, word that I had run off with a Quileute boy hadn't reached the teachers' ears. Charlie had made known that I had visited Reneé in Jacksonville apparently she was having some . . . problems.

Charlie hadn't elaborated, so I gave my own version of the story to anyone curious ad presuming enough to ask. Of course there were questions about my broken arm, and explaining _that_  was a trickier matter.

"I am really clumsy," I jokingly explained to Mr. Varner, who taught Calculus. Incidentally, it was the only class I didn't have with Edward. "I was going to bring her some juice, and I tripped on the stairs!" I tried to maintain the tone of my voice amusing when I added, "Then  _she_  had to take care of _me_!"

Mr. Varner nodded. "I see. But you still have to take the test."

With a groan of resignation, I slumped onto my chair. Grim realization hit me: I was going to flunk. With all the distractions, I had forgotten all about even and odd functions, limits, and integrals.

Thankfully, I was sat with Mike, so he offered what help he could. Each time I tapped my pen against the wrong answer, I felt an immense surge of relief that I wasn't planning on becoming a mathematician.

It was only when the bell for lunch rang that I realized I hadn't seen Edward. I expected not to in Calculus, our only separate class, but English, too? And Sociology? And Gym?

As I trudged to the cafeteria, followed by a loquacious Jessica showering me with questions. To her credit, she didn't reveal anything compromising. Such as the fact that the reason I left Forks was far more gossip-worthy than the one I had presented — to her, anyway.

In some vague corner of my mind, I was reveling on the idea of seeing Edward again. During Alice's visit on the afternoon of my arrival, I had not said a word about him. Well, asking about him in front of Charlie would be awkward, at best. But I hadn't tried to take her aside for purposes of discretion.

He simply hadn't crossed my mind. It was odd; I wasn't used to not be immersed in his memory. To be completely honest, I was still thinking about Harry's funeral. Well, not the funeral itself. The adjuncts.

Also, there was one more thing I found worrisome: Jessica had yet to ask me about my "visit to Jacksonville". I was certain she would go all in.

"So, how's your mom doing?" Angela asked while I was munching on some pizza. Cafeteria food was  _still_  terrible, but it wasn't as vomit-inducing as some of the stuff I'd had at the various diners Jacob had raided.

"She's doing okay," I managed to say. Lifting my arm, I added, "I'm in a worse state, I think."

Jessica laughed, a chirping sound, and I felt a strange sensation on the back of my neck. Like goosebumps rippling over my skin. " _Right_. The most important question is, how's _Jacksonville_?"

Gee, Jessica. Way to be subtle.

"It's . . . hotter than Phoenix? I suppose," I replied suggestively, following along. So, we were using code names now.

"Hotter, huh?"

"You've lost me," Angela said.

"Bella has a new boyfriend," Jessica explained, beaming.

"No way! Who is he? Do we know him?"

"Could it be . . ." Jessica drawled out, "Jacob McHotty Black?"

"Who?"

"He's from the Quileute reservation," Jessica said. "Bella's been hanging out with him. Mike once went with them to the movies; he told me he was this  _huge_  guy, more than six feet tall. And he's like,  _fifteen_. 'He's definitely on steroids,' he told me. I say he's just jealous."

"Fifteen? Paedo."

This exchange took less than a few seconds — so fast were they talking — and my eyes flickered between them, like I was watching two tennis players with incredible stamina.

"Hey, girls? I'm over here," I said.

"Oh, hi. No offense, but your pacing drives me up the wall. Just face the facts that you can't tell a story."

"So," Angela began, "did you go to Jacksonville with him? Did Chief Swan insist you didn't drive alone or something?"

I laughed. "He would," I said. "Well, the truth is . . ."

"You  _didn't_  go to Jacksonville!" Jessica finished for me. Several heads turned in our direction; Jessica waved them off dismissively.

"I," — I sighed in resignation — "didn't."

"I knew it! You went on a road trip with Jacob Black. Now  _that's_  a way to get over Cullen. One that I commend, anyway." She nodded approvingly, before continuing, "I'm so glad you're not in that weird funk anymore. There's really no need to be depressed over a fucking _boy_."

I set the crust of my slice on the plate before me, letting out a sign. "It's not Edward's fault he didn't like me anymore," I said bitterly. I knew that was partially a lie; Edward had showered me with promises of love and eternity, and then he simply didn't want me anymore.

Either he was a compulsive liar or had a bipolar disorder of some sort.

"Well, I say he's an asshole," Jessica emphatically proclaimed. "I bet he's one of those guys who'd say anything to get in your panties, then just bail out.  _Typical_ ," she snorted. I chuckled at the thought of Edward and sex; it was so completely out of the realm of my imagination that it felt almost crude.

"I agree," Angela chimed in. "It's pathetic."

"Totally. Now tell us about Jacob Black."

"Well, there is nothing to—"

"Uh,  _no_."

"Really, Jess. It's . . . not nearly as steamy as you'd hope, I promise."

"Did you make out at least?'"

"Seriously, it's not . . . not like that," I stammered out. Jessica slumped her shoulders, her lower lip protruding slightly in an over-the-top pout. It killed me to see her like that. "But I did," I added, lowering my voice, "kiss him."

"You go girl!" Jessica cheered.

"But it's still not like that. And it didn't even happen during our 'road trip', so." Jessica arched an eyebrow. "Change the subject, please?" I implored.

"Okay." Casting an indifferent glance above my shoulder, she said, "Edward is here."

I nodded, gulping down. "I know. And that was a terrible change of subject, by the way."

"I agree. But Edward is  _here_."

Suddenly it made sense, why I had bristled when Jessica asked me about Jacksonville. It was the sensation that usually alerted me of his presence. Like the current of electricity every time our skin touched. My body's natural reaction to him.

He  _was_  here, after all.

"Bella," a warm, honeyed voice murmured, causing me to jerk my head to the right, as if to shoo away an irksome bug.

"Bella can't talk to you, sorry," Jessica said, her voice sharp and unkind and a little lofty.

"I didn't ask  _you_ , Jessica," Edward replied. I could sense his eyes burning into me, even though I didn't dare to look back.

"I don't think you understand,  _Edward_. Bella doesn't  _want_  to speak with you."

"I'd like to hear that from  _her_ , if you don't mind," Edward said coolly.

"I don't want to talk to you," I echoed. Kicking my chair back, I stood up. "And I'd appreciate it if you stopped coming to my house uninvited," I said, more quietly now.

Edward knew I wasn't only referring to his visit on the day of Harry's funeral; Edward Cullen was used to visiting me uninvited.

"If that's what you want—"

"That's  _exactly_ what I want," I seethed, my eyes assuming a flat, icy stare. I fixed them on a spot below the collar of his green shirt; it helped me maintain my frigid demeanor.

_Don't think of how green highlights his hair, do _n't think of how green highlights his hair_ , do _n't think of how green highlights his hair_._

I could hear my heartbeat thundering in my chest and a strange . . .  _something_ writhing and twisting in my stomach, almost roaring in satisfaction. "Tell Alice that I can't—" I took a big, decisive breath. "I can't be friends with her anymore. Tell her that I hope she understands, and that I appreciate how she's stood by Charlie."

Edward nodded briskly. "I will. But I will not leave Forks, if that's what you are asking me to do," he said, his voice modulated.

"If you had a shred of— of—" My words failed me. Usually I faltered, overwhelmed by his perfection; by my sheer, all-encompassing need for him. I was determined to escape the cliché I had painstakingly constructed. "If you still claim to care for me," I hissed rapidly, "you will leave. For the sake of the Quileute boys."

"There is no point to that; Victoria has left town."

I almost cracked a mirthless smile. Almost. "When the Seattle situation is handled," I whispered, "you will have no reason to stay."

"You," he only murmured before he crossed to the Cullens' table. I caught sight of Alice, briefly; her face was a mask of surprise, and her lips quivered slightly. I averted my eyes. Vampires couldn't cry.

As I sat down beside Jessica, I felt a great surge of gratification rising up inside me.

Along with the tiniest twinge of guilt.

"I say he needs to grow a vagina," Jessica said, flipping her silky tresses over her shoulder.

Angela laughed. "A vagina?"

"I mean, balls are inherently weak. It's proven. I can demonstrate of c—"

"I get it, I get it," Angela said, throwing her hands up in defeat.

"Anyway, I was going to say that vaginas can take a pounding." She winked, and I felt my cheeks burn. Still, beside myself, I laughed.

* * *

My stomach was churning, anxiety gnawing on my insides, restlessness creeping into my movements as my foot tapped against the floor of Mr. Greene's office.

"As I said, Ms. Swan, given your academic history prior to your . . .  _slight_  slope, I am willing to give you a pass. You need to work very hard, mind you. Still, you might want to opt for summer courses."

I shook my head. "I'll work hard, I promise—" Tears were threatening to make their appearance, and I was nearly choking on my humiliation. No one would be offering me any scholarships — I never cared much for the Ivy League, but, at this rate, I wouldn't even be able to get into U-Dub.

"You can always apply to a community college — Peninsula has a satellite operation in Forks. If you keep your grades up, you can transfer to Washington later on."

I peered from behind a scattered strand of hair. So, I  _did_  have a chance at getting into U-Dub, after all. I felt a tiny sting.  _U-Dub_. It was no Yale, or Harvard, or Princeton. Which was fine. University of Washington was a good school. Public Ivy or some pleasant-sounding term like that.

"I— I can do that," I said, nodding firmly.

"Of course, you can opt for a liberal arts college. UPS is located in Tacoma, if you are interested. . . ." Mr. Greene droned on. I mentally ruled that one out; my savings account had taken a severe blow after my escapades across the continental states. Private schools weren't an option, especially since I had about zero chances of getting even a partial scholarship. ". . . or the Evergreen State College, in Olympia."

"But I've heard that the average GPA for a freshman applicant is close to 3.05," I said glumly.

"3.08, actually," Mr. Greene corrected. "But if you maintain a good grade point average and good standing at the previous college you attend — and of course satisfactory completion of the courses of your choice — you can transfer in your third year. You may be offered financial aid awards, scholarships, and tuition awards, depending on your course."

At this point, U-Dub seemed much more attainable a goal than Evergreen, but it was great that I had more than one options, both of them sounding appealing.

Αs I trudged toward Building 4 for AP Chemistry, the horrible weight in my stomach had begun to ebb.

I slipped into my usual seat and found Angela sitting on the chair beside me. I didn't question her, nor did I protest; I knew Edward wouldn't attempt to sit beside me after today, but it felt nice to have someone there for me. A friend.

Minutes passed, and more students gathered — none of them was Edward. I tried to settle more comfortably into my chair, but anticipation was eating me alive. I opened my mouth, as if to ask something, but Angela cut me short.

"He's not coming," she said conversationally.

I turned my head to face her, curiosity contorting my features. "How do you know?"

"Lauren said he changed his curriculum."

My eyes widened in surprise. "Did he," I said noncommittally.

"Uh-huh."

"Is it possible?" I asked.

Angela shrugged. "I really have no idea," she said. "But he has his way with people, I suppose. Mr. Greene adores him."

I bit the inside of my cheek in chagrin.

"Hey, hey," I heard Angela murmur softly, "it's better this way. I saw you today, at the cafeteria. I don't know how he does it, but he has a . . . an effect on you. I can't put my finger on it, but it's . . .  _strong_."

I felt heat rise up to my face. I had always been weak around Edward and never cared if it showed. But it  _did_ , and I hated it now.

Angela was right — it  _was_  better that way. Except it didn't feel like it.

I wanted Edward to stay away. Deep inside, though, I knew there was something I wanted more than that. For once, I wanted to show him that I  _wasn't_  weak. Did my new sense of independence require his presence to operate? Was it some sick, fervent desire to  _show_ him how little I cared? Was it all just a point to prove?

How pathetic was that.

A collective sigh emanating from my classmates brought me back to reality.

". . . your textbooks on page sixty-four."

Chemical equations swam before my eyes.

_The general equation of alkanes for complete combustion is: CnH2n+2 + (1.5n+0.5)O2 - (n+1)H2O + nCO2_

_Based on that, solve the following problem:  
_

_4,48L of alkane, in STP conditions, combust completely. 14,4g H2O are produced. What is the molecular formula of the alkane?  
_

I supposed I should cross chemist out of my list of job ambitions, too.

* * *

I vaguely took notice of the cruiser as I parked on our driveway. _  
_

"How was school?" Charlie asked, peering from behind his newspaper, when I entered the kitchen.

"It was, uh, fine," I said. I weighed in my options and decided not to mention today's Calculus failure. It was the prudent thing to do, and, besides, Charlie had a lot to deal with now. "What are you doing here? I mean, it's early, isn't it?"

"Eh, it's Forks," Charlie said, shrugging. "Nothing ever happens here." He folded his newspaper in half as he rose from his chair.

"What about Sam Uley's gang?"

"I haven't forgotten about that," he said sternly. "I don't know what to believe. Or  _who_  to believe, for that matter. Billy says it's nothing to worry about, and that Jake doesn't even hung out with Uley that much. But it's scary how they've all changed,  _especially_ Jacob. A bundle of 'roids, all of them."

"Dad, I know that there's no gang. I was only joking."

"I don't know—"

"Do you think Billy would lie to you? Or that  _I_ 'm covering up for some Quileute gang business?" I asked incredulously.

"No, I don't," Charlie simply huffed. "But what am I supposed to think?"

I nodded. He was right. But what was  _I_  supposed to tell him?

 _Hey_ , _my ex-boyfriend? He's a vampire. But not an evil one. He doesn't burn in the sun; he_  sparkles _in the sun._ _I know, right? And that best friend of mine? A werewolf. Designed to hunt down and kill vampires. And that broken arm? Oh, yeah, a vampire did it! But that one was evil and wanted to brutally murder me in retaliation to Edward killing her mate. And _—_  Dad? Dad?_

"I know Jacob better than you do, Dad. If he knew of gang or was in trouble, he'd tell me."

Charlie looked unconvinced. "I haven't told you, because I didn't know what to make of it at the time, but," — he looked at me as if he was about to say something truly horrible — "I saw him, Jacob, at the reservation. With some of his . . . uh, friends."

"When was that?" I asked, not sure what this had to do with anything.

"Before you left, obviously. I didn't recognize him, at first. He was wearing no shirt, like the rest of them, but that wasn't it. He looked different. He  _acted_  different."

"How so?"

"Well, he was arguing with them. I went a little closer, to say hello, but he didn't hear me. Or pretended not to, I don't know." I betted on the second — transforming into a gargantuan wolf-like beast had its perks, and one of them was heightened sense of hearing. "Anyway, he was talking to Sam Uley, kept saying 'you can't do this . . . keep me away like that . . .' I don't know, didn't make much sense. So, I gave up and went to Billy's."

A smile began to form on my lips. We hadn't spoken much about the brief, dark time when Jacob didn't talk to me or return my calls  _before_  the "revelation", but he'd made it pretty clear afterwards that he'd never intended to stay away from me. It was partly Sam's fault, but, as I'd recently found out, the wolf genes, too.

"I don't think that make sense, Dad. Maybe you misheard. But if they appeared to be fighting, then Jacob isn't friends with Sam."

Charlie shrugged noncommittally.

When I sat in front of my desk, poised and determined, a few hours later, I realized falling back into my previous routine wasn't as easy as I'd anticipated. With the Victoria problem resolved and with the restoration of my friendship with Jacob, it seemed as though things were falling back to normal. Of course there was the mysterious army in Seattle, but somehow I wasn't thinking about that. For once, I simply reveled in the idea of someone else taking care of things for me. In this case, it meant the Cullens and wolves working together to eliminate the threat. After all, what could  _I_ do? I was only mortal.

But I couldn't focus. My hands fumbled with a pen and notebook for a few moments, but I soon gave up. And I wondered why I'd flunk.

I thought of Edward, today — of course — and Alice found a place in my mind, too. And the pit of my stomach, gnawing at it in the form of guilt. It was unfair that I'd suddenly decided to remove her from my life, and she didn't deserve this. But Alice — her disappointed and hurt expressions when I'd say the wrong thing — had the same dazzling effect Edward did. Although an entirely different thing, I couldn't afford her influence.  _Their_  influence.

 _It's_ _what's best_ , I told myself, and the remnants of the pain in my chest screamed in protest.

A groan of boredom too many later, I picked up my cell, intending to call Jake, but found a message already awaiting me:

_cant come over tonight. on patrol until doomsday, apparently. to "compensate for my absence". should've stayed were we were._

**Well, I've got an English Lit paper for tomorrow. So, yeah.**

_do you? or did you find out just now?  
_

**I may or may not have intended to ignore it. But, oh well.** _  
_

I flipped my phone closed; I spared a quick glance at the device — it was the thick thing I'd bought at a Walmart in Carson City. It was actually practical in a way my "old" phone wasn't. Back in a simpler time, when your cell phone could only make calls and send SMSes, you'd be all set with a flip-phone like that.

I heaved a sigh. At times like these, there were two things able to console me: Jacob and Gothic literature.

Reluctantly, I turned my attention back to my English Lit paper topic:

_In what ways might Jane Eyre be considered a feminist novel? What points does the novel make about the treatment and position of women in Victorian society? With particular attention to the book's treatment of marriage, is there any way in which it might be considered anti-feminist?_

I sighed.  _Jane_ _Eyre_ lay on my desk; its spine was stiff, unlike the binding of  _Wuthering Heights_ , which was visibly creased. I rifled through the pages, skimming through the neatly typed letters.

And I submerged myself into beautiful nouns and the Victorian era. And it felt like a second nature. It momentarily reminded me of Jacob and of how easy it was to be with him. Like breathing. After all, Gothic literature was one of my fortes.

I thought of  _Wuthering Heights_ was still in my backpack, hidden at the bottom of it; I was terrified of opening it again. I guess it reminded me too much of Edward. He'd asked me once — it felt too long ago — why I was so keen on rereading it. He thought the characters had no redeeming qualities. And they didn't, not on their own at least; they were selfish, horrible, self-destructive people. Yet their  _love_  was their shared redeeming quality.

That didn't feel so right, now.

I could bring entire passages to mind:

_Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!_

After all this time of running and hiding, of complications and unexpected revelations, lines like this made my insides churn in revolt.

It was much later — after my printer stopped clunking, after I got up from my chair, stretching my arms and torso like my body depended on it, as I placed my essay into an orange pocket folder — that it occurred to me that things were beginning to assimilate back into their old uninteresting quality.

Until they weren't.

My eyes caught a swift — too quick to be human — movement. I whipped my head around; there was no one. For a half heartbeat I expected to see Edward, perched on the foot of my bed, his butterscotch eyes burning into mine. But it couldn't be, of course. It would have been Jacob, if it had been anyone at all. But, as graceful as he'd become, he couldn't move like  _that_. And, most importantly, he wouldn't  _disappear_  like that.

"You killed her."

I whirled around, almost losing my balance in the process; I gripped the corner of my desk to retain it. The pointy corner punctured my flesh.

A stoic figure was standing at the far corner of my bedroom, almost entirely concealed by the darkness. I could only discern a single hand that beetled from the shadows, a hand so pale it could only belong to. . . .

"Wh— Who are you?" I stammered out. My breath hitched in my throat when I caught a glimpse of the set of eyes watching my carefully. A set of eyes that resembled rubies — bloody and beautiful.

The figure stood where it was, silent, terrifying, eerily perfect—

—and it simply disappeared. Out of my open window, which I couldn't remember opening myself.

A gust of chilly air whipped across my face, and I wondered if it would ever end.


	10. Allies

  
_the birds, they got help from below / from dirty paws and the creatures of snow  
_ Of Monsters and Men, "Dirty Paws"

 

"How did he look like?" Jacob asked for what felt like the hundredth time. "Any piece of information is a lead, Bells. You've got to give us something."

I ran a hand through my hair; it was a tangled mane, but somehow the pain that registered brought me to my senses. Well, enough to form a coherent response: "I told you . . . I didn't  _get_  to see him."

I didn't say it was an informative one. But it was the truth; in the dim light of my bedroom, I could barely see anything as it were — any helpful details regarding my nightime visitor (who was, by the way, almost entirely concealed by darkness) would require something more than my weak, human senses.

The Cullens' living room was not as I remembered it to be. It wasn't as richly decorated — probably due to their recent arrival — but there was something else, too. An undercurrent, maybe. Something that rendered the vast mansion less welcome than it had been on my last visit. I could see it in the condescending way Rosalie looked at Jacob — brief, controlled glances that never lingered for longer than a half heartbeat — and Emmett and Jasper's poised demeanor. Perhaps they didn't intend to, but I could feel a cold wave of hostility rippling toward us.

"What did he say?" a smoother voice asked; I instantly felt a surge of calmness wash over me.

"Don't do that, Jasper. Please," I said quietly. The feeling subsided, but only slightly — there was only hollowness in my chest now and a vague feeling of safety. Still, it was wrong; it should have been crippling terror. "And he said, 'You killed her'. He was talking about Victoria, I know it. He's the vampire you're looking for."

"Why would he assume you killed Victoria?" Alice asked in disbelief.

I settled more comfortably on the couch — or at least I tried — and explained, "I didn't exactly kill her. But I distracted her, so that Jacob could." I didn't mean to sound proud or conceited about what I'd done . . . but, when you've helped kill a vampire, you can certainly boast about it. Well, not the killing part. It still madehair grow up the back of my neck at the thought that my actions led to the death of someone. But it was the death of Victoria I'd caused, and that ought to count for something. Especially if you are merely human.

"She did," Jacob asserted, supporting his words with a vigorous nod. "I couldn't have done it without her. If it weren't for her, we'd probably both be dead now."

"That was chance," Edward pointed out, his dulcet tones dismissive. "What happened last night was pure chance, too. He could have murdered you on the spot."

I knew  _that_  one. The question was:  _why_  didn't he?

"Look," I said, forcing my voice to appear confident, "I've caused you enough trouble. You don't have to do anything. I'm sure Jacob's pack," — a snort from Jacob — "will be more than happy to handle this." I shifted in my seat, fidgeting with my cast. "They won't do it because they feel like they owe me something," I added pointedly.

"We don't owe you anything," Rosalie snapped, her voice cold and dismissive.

Carlisle lifted an arm, as though to silence her — or maybe it was a peaceful gesture — and offered a small smile. "You were part of our family, Bella," he said kindly. "Perhaps you don't consider yourself that anymore, but we would be happy to help you."

It wasn't hard to miss Rosalie's disdainful snort.

"Th— Thanks," I stammered out. "That's really kind of you, really, but—"

" _But_  we can handle this," Jacob finished for me. I caught him shooting a glare at Rosalie — they were such complete opposites that they could be counterparts of their respective . . . supernatural clan.

Jasper stepped forward, his hands knotted behind his back. "Of course," he said calmly. "You have killed a vampire before; no one in this room doubts your skill." Rosalie made a sharp noise at his remark, but said nothing. "But you don't know as much about vampires as we do."

"You don't kno—"

" _Newborn_ vampires . . . differ from us in terms of strength and ability," Jasper said in a quiet voice. "We do not get stronger as we age, whatever you learn from TV. They are more powerful than I or Carlisle are."

I perked up in interest. "Is this why Victoria created them?"

Jasper offered a small, sad smile. "Yes. An army of newborn vampires — because this is what it is, essentially: an army — is unstoppable. But when these vampires are volatile and wild, they are not easy to control."

I thought of the recent murders in Seattle, how the police and newspapers tried to justify them. I'd read about similar disappearance and murder cases in the past: the possibility that those were actually the work of an army of vampires was terrifying. And completely realistic.

"Vampire armies in the North aren't common," Jasper continued. "In fact, there are none; we are nomads, and interaction with humans doesn't involve feeding on them." There was a sadness in his eyes as he spoke these words. Jasper's upbringing as a vampire wasn't the same as Edward's or Rosalie's, in that he wasn't changed by Carlisle. Until he met Alice, feeding on humans was his life.

Emmett, who had been leaning against the railing of the stairs, settled comfortably onto the couch across from us. He picked up the remote control and flicked a random button; the rest turned their attention on the TV, too, already familiar with Jasper's story. Only Edward remained beside Jacob and me, eyes trained on Jasper's face, just as absorbed as we were.

"Covens like Carlisle's," Jasper began, "seek places where they can operate during day without being discovered. Forks is ideal in that regard." I couldn't help but smile at the idea of a vampire in Phoenix. "We don't want to bring attention upon ourselves, but there are some who don't see things in our perspective."

"Vampires like Victoria and James," I surmised.

"Well, yes."

"I still don't see where this is going," Jacob chimed in impatiently. "I get it, not all vampires drink doe blood."

Jasper nodded briskly. "The North is quite different from the South, much more civilized." he elaborated. "It has been war, constant war, the South. War that has been going on for centuries, with never one moment of truce."

"Between vampires?" I rasped precariously. How was it possible for a raging war between immortals to have been transpiring for centuries without raising some eyebrows?

Jasper nodded knowingly. "I am not going to bore you with the specifics, but vampires have been fighting over the most . . . fertile territory for centuries."

"Fertile?"

"Sustenance," he said tersely. "Picture, for instance, a map of the western hemisphere. Picture on it every human life as a small red dot. The thicker the red, the more easily we — well, those who exist this way — can feed without attracting notice."

I shuddered. "So . . . this 'war' has been happening for control over the most . . .  _fertile_  regions?"

"Exactly."

"And what do newborn vampires have to do with that?"

"They were created to propel this cause," Jasper explained. "Of course, they were a nightmare to control, but if you are experienced enough, you can deal with them easily."

"But you said that they're stronger than you," Jacob pitched in. I could see it in his posture — shoulders hunched forward, foot tapping against the thick carpet, fists intertwined — that he'd rather be anywhere but the Cullens' living room.

"Strength doesn't imply competence or discipline," Jasper said. "And if you know their weaknesses, it becomes easier to annihilate them."

* * *

If the impromptu meeting between Jacob and Paul had been held under the worst possible circumstances, with each side determined to bite each other's head off —  _literally_  — then I should have probably stayed home today. It was Jacob who had insisted I'd come; he didn't admit it out loud, but he must have been eager to show off to the "bloodsuckers". (There, I'd been picking up wolf slang.) He'd probably just  _love_  to prove how cooler he and the pack were compared to the Cullens.

It would be hilarious to see the pack's reaction to the vampires' special, ahem, ability. Except that wasn't possible, for the sun was entirely hidden by a thick cover of clouds. Only a few gleaming rays managed to sneak through their thinner spots, but they weren't enough to expose the Cullens.

The Cullens were assembled in a wide V-shaped formation; Carlisle was situated at the head, the rest branching out in perfect symmetry. Edward, Rosalie, and Alice stood to his left; Esme and Emmett to his right.

The small army of wolves that descended the low slope formed a similar pattern; the pack looked down at the vampire coven, haughtily, almost contemptuously. There were two new additions: the slightly smaller than the rest, grey wolf and an equally runty, sand-hued one.

 _Leah and Seth_ , I thought.

Carlisle made a small step forward; Sam — the enormous, black wolf at the head of the pack's formation — dipped his head to acknowledge him.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet us," Carlisle said.

The wolf's dark eyes turned to slits, and I vaguely registered the appearance of a smile on Edward's lips. Knowing Jacob — and having met Paul Lahote once — I was certain Sam had thought up something crude. Nevertheless, Edward said nothing.

"Edward here," Carlisle continued, beckoning to him, "will speak on your behalf."

Sam's demeanor didn't change.

Snuggled as I was close to Jacob's copper fur, leaning into his side, I could see their eyes fixated on me. Well, not all of them. Rosalie and Emmett were glowering at the wolves, sneers curling up their lips; Esme's attention was devoutly staunch on Carlisle. Only Edward and Alice's gazes seemed to be zeroing in on me. There was a hurt flare in Alice's topaz eyes; Edward's expression was a blend of unflagging heed and something else I couldn't quite place.

"The vampires are our main concern," Carlisle stated curtly. "And newborn vampires are quite different from what you might expect."

A low sound, a growl, came through Sam's gritted teeth. Edward translated: "He says it won't make any difference to them." A smile played at the corners of his mouth. "He claims they can still take them."

"As if," Emmett snorted.

Carlisle didn't seem fazed when he said, "You don't know vampires as well as I do. I do not know newborn vampires as well as Jasper does." With a small jerk of his head, he points to him. "We offer to teach you how to fight against them, if you allow us to."

Sam's canine expression remained unaltered, but it became clear that his decision had been made.

Edward nodded firmly before he intoned, "They accept."

Over the course of the next few hours, I watched in awe as vampires and werewolves danced together a deadly dance, the Cullens' grace against the pack's raw power. It was equal parts mesmerizing and terrifying. If I didn't know they were actually working with a common goal in mind, I'd be biting my nails like there was no tomorrow in anxiety.

It did take quite some time, after the initial agreement, to dull the suspicion and distrust of the wolves — I could see it in the way Paul was lunging for Emmett's neck or the vicious growls from Jacob. And it wasn't like the Cullens were any more friendly; with the exception of Carlisle and maybe Esme, the vampires looked more than eager to do more than demonstrative harm. The only thing that kept them from tearing each other to pieces was their common goal.

Seeing the immortals par on par with the very much alive wolves — as Jacob kept stressing — only served to make me realize how small and insignificant I was.

There was really no place for me in this battle.

* * *

"Where the hell are the Cheetos?"

I slammed the lower kitchen cupboard shut and muttered in response, "I don't know, Jake. And, for the love of God,  _please_  go now."

"Don't you want me here?" he teased, but, frankly, I was too busy to give a crap.

I leaned backwards, now peering through the door. He was sprawled across my couch, as per usual, not showing any intention of moving. "You've spent half of today in my house and have emptied my fridge. And now you want  _Cheetos_ ," I said in feigned reproach. "So, your argument is valid. Besides, Jessica and Angela are coming tonight. Do  _you_  want to have a girls' night in? Because I'm sure  _they_  wouldn't mind."

Jacob threw up his hands. "Boy-talk and pedicures?" he said. "I'm out."

I scowled at him. "That's not all girls talk about," I retorted.

"Whatever. I'm still out."

He got up from the couch — you'd think that having spent so much time at a standstill, one would have more trouble getting up. Releasing a prolonged yawn, he stretched his long arms above his head and crossed to where I was standing, leaning against the sill of the door. He pinched a strand of stray hair and tucked it behind my ear; I stubbornly shook my head, effectively discarding more hair into my face.

"Sam wants me to patrol tonight."

I frowned. "Doesn't he always, though?"

"See you tomorrow?"

"Fat chance," I grumbled. "I can't afford to neglect school anymore."

"Seriously." Jacob's voice was laced with incredulity and disbelief, but he didn't comment. "I'll see you when I see you, then."

After Jacob was gone, I was at a complete loss at what to do. Thursday had been a haze for me; the late night visit of the nameless vampire dominated my thoughts — I was astonished at even my ability to leave the house that morning, let alone manage what meager sleep I had the night before — so when Jessica suggested a 'girls' night in' at my place "in order to catch up properly", I had absentmindedly accepted.

A significant portion of Friday was depleted on the wolves' "training session", and, before I knew it, it was Saturday, and I was supposed to play hostess.

It didn't occur to me until later that it was quite stupid of me to have the girls come to my house — even if it wasn't exactly my decision anyway. With a new enemy on my tail, I should probably move to a different state entirely. But leaving Charlie again, that I couldn't do.

"I'm not leaving Forks," I'd insisted.

"She's not staying at the Reservation," Edward had stated sharply, once again leaving me out of the negotiation.

"We can protect her," Jacob had said dismissively.

"You're dangerous," Alice had snapped.

"Shut  _up_ ," I'd vented, and that was it.

I picked up the phone from its cradle and dialed up the numbers.

One ring. Two.

" _Hello?_ "

"Hey, Jess? You're still there?"

" _I was just getting ready to— Oh. No. You. Did-n't. You are_ not _bailing out on me, Swan._ "

A muffled voice said something in protest, but I couldn't make out what it was. "Is Angela with you?"

" _Two birds with one stone, huh? Yeah, she's here._ "

"Great. I was just wondering . . . is it possible to come to your place? Instead of you coming to mine?"  _Excuse, excuse, think of an excuse._  "There's some big game or something," I explained. "Charlie's got some of his friends here, no notice whatsoever."

A sigh from the other line. " _Oh, that's it?_ " Jessica said. " _Well, we've got no objection here_  . . .  _but bring your own stuff, too, please . . . 'cause we've looked ahead in only one . . . area._ "

Angela giggled in the background.

"Oh, okay. Sure thing. Um, bye."

With a shaky hand, I scribbled a note to Charlie on a little, yellow post-it:

_Going to Jessica's for a sleepover. I've got dinner in the fridge. Try not to sleep on the couch again. -Bella_

I figured I should avoid Cheetos altogether — no one but Jacob liked the orange, powdery residue — and opted for Hershey's Kisses and a bottle of cranberry-flavored liqueur. Because I was edgy like that.

* * *

"That is. So.  _Hot_."

Okay. I'd better handle this with as much grace and dignity as possible.

Jessica Stanley was drunk, and I was positive the cause of my death would be extreme blushing.

"This conversation is making me uncomfortable," I mumbled.

Jessica had spent the last — oh, let's see — three quarters of an hour listing the merits of Jacob Black. I, on the other hand, found consolation in my liqueur, taking small sips each time Jessica said something outrageous. Admittedly, I wasn't all that clear-headed either — but my liver had seen worse days; namely, my night out with Jacob.

I hadn't seen Jessica so out of character in . . . ever, actually, but during the three and a half hours I'd spent in her house tonight, I'd at least gotten the chance to simply escape the tangled web of the supernatural. Even if it was for a night.

"Oooooooooh," Jessica cooed, nudging my side, "Bella Swan is  _uncomfortable_. You weren't so uncomfortable when you were boning Ja—" She proceeded to interrupt herself with a high-pitched laugh.

"What are you even talking—"

"Dude," Angela drawled out, "you're drunk."

"So are you."

I glanced at the discarded pile of sweets on the carpet before us — we were stretched out on the thick, woolly material, forming a small circle — and singled out a transparent, plastic bag, filled with dozens of tiny, jello bears.

I glanced at it and thought, yeah, maybe this  _was_  like those pre-teen slumber parties I'd attended in what felt like a different life — slumber parties with alcohol, that is.

"Gummi bears? Really?"

Jessica pulled the bottle of vodka from her lap and a glass bowl from a low coffee table in the corner of her bedroom. "See," she said, pouring the clear liquid into the bowl, " _these_ ," — she picked up the bag of gummi bears and pinched one between her index finger and thumb — "go in  _here_."

Soon, the vodka was completely concealed by the red and orange and green rubbery confections.

"I wish I'd done this yesterday," Jessica moaned. "It won't taste like vodka now." She randomly picked a fuchsia one and gingerly tasted it. "Yep, still preservative-filled, tasteless crap," she asserted.

Angela laughed. "I think that's for the better. You probably shouldn't drink anymore."

"Fine." I could sense, in her words a lack of finality. Yes, she meant to add something, an ultimatum. I could see it in the wicked grin that spread across her face. "But I need to know more about Jacob."

"No, you don't," I murmured indifferently.

Jessica propped herself up. "Is he better than Edward?" she asked with a wink.

" _JESSICA!_ "

"Okay, fine." Jessica crossed her arms over her chest. When her childish stubborness failed, she dropped them on her lap. She'd given up, but only temporarily; she'd lost the battle, but not the war. "Fine. Let's talk about something else."

"Yes, Mike wants to do you. We  _know_ ," Angela said, sort of tiredly. It must have been a hot and commonly visited topic of their discussions while I was busy being in a near comatose state of depression. During those months of my life, I had the vague impression that something had been going on between them. It wasn't a relationship — not the kind of official relationship Edward and I had — but more of an on, off, and on again kind of situation. Casual dating with all the (parepomena).

"I wasn't— He does? Oh, well." Jessica's attempt at appearing uncaring was worthy of a Golden Raspberry for Worst Actress, at best; there was a glassy glint in her eyes, and the smile she fought to suppress was already curling up her lips. Off with a chance of on? "But I wasn't going to talk about that."

Angela arched an eyebrow. "Sure."

Jessica shot her an angry look. "As a matter of fact," she stated, "I wasn't. Girls can talk about something other than boys." Angela rolled her eyes dramatically. There was something, though, about Jessica's expression that made her refrain from retorting. She didn't look nearly as drunk as before, for one. "I just . . . what happened to you, Bella?"

I nearly spit my mouthful of liqueur; throwing up a hand to clamp over my mouth, my eyes squinting in fret, I swallowed the sweet drink. "What do you mean?" I asked amid coughs.

"You know," Jessica said, a bit impatiently. "After the Cullens left, you were . . . I don't know, Bella. You were terrible, and it was all—" She cut herself short, unable to explain my behavior. Well, I didn't blame her. "But you treated us like crap, and I do not appreciate that."

I lowered my head in embarrassment. "Oh.  _That_ ," I mumbled. "I . . . it was not a good time for me, but I didn't realize until now the impact it had." That part was true. I  _hadn't_ realized, until that very moment that my catatonic behavior during the four-month gap could have hurt my friends. I hadn't even thought of Charlie, to be honest. I was just  _that_ selfish. "I'm— I'm sorry," I said honestly.

Jessica waved me off dismissively. "Don't even mention it," she said. "But I know when I'm being used, and I—"

"Whoa," I gasped, "I'm not— This is— I don't—"

"I'm not talking about now," Jessica laughed. "But, yeah . . . it's nice that you've overcome, you know, whatever. . . ."

Angela glanced at Jessica, then at me, then back at Jessica. "Okay," she drawled out. "Let's talk about something  _lighter_ , perhaps?"

"Ooh, ooh, I know!" Jessica said, jolting up. "I'm . . . getting a  _scholarship_!" she announced; her voice was so shrill, and the words were spewed at lightning speed, so we just gaped at her for a few moments.

"Holy shit!" Angela exclaimed. She reeled forward and wrapped her arms around her friend.

"Partial, granted, but it's still something. . . ."

Meanwhile, I just stood there, bottle of liqueur still in my lap. A scholarship. I'd been so fervently trying to search for alternatives to my former college options — during the past couple of days, not counting those I spent worrying about my vampire visitor — that I'd skipped my mind that people out there had a 4.0 GPA and a chance to get into the school of their preference. Instead of compromising for the minimum, like me.

"Congratulations, Jess," I mumbled. Forcing myself to sound more excited, I intoned, "I'm so happy for you. What school?"

"Penn —  _freaking_  — State!" Jessica gushed as she accepted my awkward hug. "Gosh, it seems so far away, doesn't it?"

"Hmph," I hummed absently. "It's great."

"I'm thinking of going to journalism school," Angela said. "I'd love to get accepted to a good one, though. If I wind up going to seminars for "Creative Writing", I'll die."

"It won't matter either way," I said honestly. "You're great, so."

"Aw, thanks."

"What about you, Bella? I always thought you'd major in English Literature or something." Her smile was knowing.

"I'm thinking a major in Creative Writing, maybe a minor in Gender Studies," I offered. "I've found some . . . interesting colleges that aren't too far from here, actually."

Jessica beamed at me. "Ooh, I like the sound of that."

* * *

I'd never been a fan of oversized sunglasses, and, besides, who needs sunglasses in Forks? I was more than grateful, though, when Jessica lent me her own pair — seriously, who needs sunglasses in Forks? My eyes were red ("I swear, you didn't smoke pot, Bella. That would be  _way_  out of line.") and the bags under them could easily carry my books to school. My broken arm felt like someone had been sitting on it for the entirety of last night, and the churning in my stomach was unbearable.

Surprisingly enough, Jessica was stone-cold sober.

"Okay," she said, fixing the temples of the sunglasses behind my ears, "you look relatively normal like this — _just stop scowling_!"

"I'm not scowling!" I moaned, trying to ignore the pounding in my head. "That's my face."

"Well, it looks like you're scowling, and, combined with your paleness, clumsiness, and," — she slipped the sunglasses down the bridge of my nose, so as to look at me straight in the eyes — "that look you're giving me right now . . . well, I'd suggest you just went off to sleep."

"It's not fair," I groaned dramatically. "I drank cranberry-flavored liqueur, for crying out loud."

Jessica only smiled.

* * *

The Dodge rolled to a halt in our driveway, its engine making a single roaring sound before falling into silence. I dropped her hand from the ignition and ran my palm over the steering wheel, feeling the billowy texture. It was no Chevy, I'd come to realize it as soon as I climbed into its beige-leather seats for the first time. It was a purchase born out of necessity — an exchange, really — that had ultimately served no purpose. Yet, I liked this old, rusty piece of metal. Maybe it was because it reminded me too much of my Chevy, or maybe because I spent the most free weeks of my life driving, or maybe it was just the fact that Jacob had picked it. Even if it was a dillemma between that and the Mercury Bobcat.

I fought the urge to scratch my cast — it would be silly and have no effect at the itch. Despite my broken arm, I didn't have too much trouble with driving. My half-a-century-old truck didn't leave much room for speed, and Jessica's house wasn't too far away from mine. The only reason I'd driven there was the stuff I'd brought with me.

I dragged my legs out of the truck, lugging my backpack behind me, and ungracefully hopped on the ground. I had to steady myself against the blue surface of the Dodge in order to regain my balance; when I glanced up, I wondered why  _he_  hadn't done that for me.

"Bells, are you sure you don't want to come?"

Sticking out my head, I peered into the hall outside my bedroom. "I've got homework to catch up on," I said hurriedly. "And, besides, I wouldn't really know what to do with myself there. I didn't know Harry that well."

"Fine. I'll be home by ten."

"Cool."

He was standing there, stoical and somber, piercing eyes burning into mine — a slow, potent burning — as I approached the window. My hand trembled as I pushed the handled; the window opened wide, making a soft, screeching sound, a sign I should oil it soon. I rested my hand on the pane, evenly returning the gaze. "What are you doing here?" I heard myself ask. My tone was demanding, yet my voice was calm and composed. It wasn't like I needed to shout to be heard. "Didn't you change all your classes to avoid me?" Acid dripped from my words, as if I was actually bitter he had done so. As if I had the right to.

"I did it, because you wanted me to."

That part of myself, the stronger one that had arisen from the ashes like a phoenix, reborn and re(something), was all to eager to say something cold and dismissive. Condescending, maybe.  _Oh, right. Why don't you go back to doing_ that _?_ It wanted to (katapnigw) the powerful urge to shout,  _No, I didn't want that._ I strove to maintain whatever dignity I had on its already crumbling pedestal, but staring into the deep molten gold of his eyes rendered that nearly impossible.

"Well, alright then," I mumbled, embarrassed.

"When this is all over," Edward carefully intoned, "I will leave you alone, as I promised. But I will be watching, always. I promise."

Anger began to rise up, surge in one massive wave that discarded my stream of consciousness like a house of cards. Whatever retort I was ready to spew at him, I bit it back. "What are you talking about?" I hissed angrily. "Wait, I'm coming down."

As I descented the stairs, jumping two or three steps at a time, my hands gripping the (koupasth) for good measure, I fought to choose between my conflicting emotions. I knew it, as I opened the front door, that the scale was already leaning in favor of Edward — it was always going to be that way when I'd have to face him.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "What do you mean you'll be watching."

"You." All coherent thought — as if I could claim to have it around him — vanished when he lifted a light hand to stroke my cheek. With a sudden lurch, my heart made its presence known in my ears. "I'll be watching you."

Some cheesy melody, backing cheesy lyrics, ringed in my ears. I felt the need to laugh — I really did need a good laugh, didn't I? Maybe it would disparse the absurdity of it all — but stopped myself from doing so. "I don't want you to."

Edward's smile was humorless. "You can't be safe unless—"

"Unless  _what_ , exactly? You and your family trying to protect me? I don't want that." I didn't want to say that the wolves could do that job instead of him; first, I wasn't too sure if they even cared for my protection, if their generosity could extend beyond the imminent peril of the newborn vampires. And second, I didn't want  _anyone_  to watch over me, like I was a child needing to be protected. And I  _was_ , in a sense, a child needing to be protected. I  _was_ a child compared to the Cullens, and, in a world straight out of horror stories and folklore, I could most certainly use all the protection I could get. "I was safer away from you," I said bleakly.

He gave me that look again — that mix of betrayal and disappointment that danced in his eyes when he'd visited me at the hospital in Michigan. Like I had just said something outrageous, like I had offended him. "Did you honestly think I'd leave you?"

"Oh, please. You're here because of some . . . twisted guilt that won't let you move on with your life. Not all of my problems are of your concern," I spat, desperately wanting for the words to not come out of my mouth, yet overcome by the sheer need to utter them.

"If I feel guilty for anything, it is for being too convincing." He allowed for his words to hang in the air for a while, let them register. I felt bile rising in my throat. Edward had buried the seed of guilt and self-pity so deeply inside me . . . yet, here he was, proper knight in shining armor, self-congratulary speeches and a sense of responsibility that I didn't need him to fulfill. . . .

I sighed. "If you want to tell me something, just do it."

Edward offered a smile, unlike my recent attempts that ended up grotesque grimaces or Jacob's sunny grins — it was his crooked smile, and I felt my resistances crumbling to dust. "If I feel guilty for anything, it is for letting you believe I didn't want you anymore."

So it  _hadn't_  been a figment of my imagination.

"Oh," I managed to say.

"I know it now," he murmured mirthlessly, "that you can't be safe unless I protect you. It was such a stroke of luck that Alice saw—"

My heart fell to my stomach. The shiny, yellow sports car. The note from "Alice". Edward in Michigan.

One plus one, equals?

A sharp intake of breath. A wave of realization crashing over me. "You were following us," I choked out. " _You_  — were — following us."

It was as if I had said the most natural thing. Nodding once, as though, behind my words, there was the implication that I was thankful for his actions, he said, "It was the only way."

Unable to respond to that, I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder and stomped to the front door; I slammed it shut behind me as I went, desiring nothing more than to be away from him.


	11. Epilogue

 

_we are loving, bleeding, conscious things  [...] / and we are living/breathing_  
Mesita, "Living/Breathing"

 

Jessica was in Cancún. Angela in Kentucky, visiting relatives. Mike was still in Forks, working shifts at Newton Outfitters.

Edward was gone.

The Cullens vanished in a swirl of fog, it seemed. The day I realized this felt like a birthday morning. Like when you turn ten, or thirteen, or eighteen. And it doesn't feel like you're older, or more mature, or responsible all of a sudden. And you're ten, thirteen, and eighteen, at the same time. When Jacob casually mentioned on an unexpectedly sunny morning that the Cullens had left Forks forever, thus rendering the vampire-werewolf treaty needless, I merely blinked in response.

It didn't resonate with me in the way I'd expected. I didn't feel compelled to visit their house, just to check if it was unoccupied.

Perhaps I was simply growing up.

So did Charlie. He and Sue learnt to cope with the burdens each carried. They took care of each other. Healed scars and licked at wounds. It was a delicate situation, but, on the final days of my stay at Forks, I saw it: a steady glow in his eyes and a smile that lit up the whole house.

"Bells," he told me one chilly evening, as we sipped tea on the porch, huddled in sweaters and jackets, "I think your old man is gonna be all right after all."

My eyes travelled across the peaks of the pines in the distance that were illuminated by moonlight and starlight. The cancerous paleness of the moon spilled a silver spotlight onto an invisible spot of the woodland. "Are you sure?" I asked eventually.

"Positive." A beat. "I can't let you waste away here." He peered at me and offered a smile. Upon my confused look, he sighed. "All I wanted to do in my life was to become a police officer."

I arched an eyebrow. "And you did."

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"But you're not happy."

There was a longer pause now. The moments stretched into minutes, and Charlie eyed the oak on our loan thoughtfully, casting an occasional glance at me. "It isn't that . . . nah, it isn't that. I just never got a chance to— to  _leave_. It was eighteen years in Forks, then Seattle for college, then Forks again." There was a hint of sadness in his voice that strained it, as though it was barely contained.

Perhaps now I understood his bitterness for Renée; she'd left, for good.

"Dad," I said, setting my cup on the low table pushed against the wall, beside the door. "Life doesn't end at forty. You can retire, and then . . . life is yours."

Charlie smiled mirthlessly. "You really want this, don't you?"

I felt my lips quirk into a small smile. "Yes. I have it figured out. Travel with Jacob, then community college, then UDub — like you, Dad — and I can write in the meantime, too."

Charlie nodded. "Life is yours," he echoed. He picked up my cup from the table and slipped into the house. I heard the flick of a light switch.

* * *

The first stop was Jacksonville: waves crashing into fine sand, sunlight spilling over back lawns. I stood in the driveway of Renée's house — Jacob was waiting in the car — mapping out what I would tell her.

"Are you gonna stay there all day? 'Cause the sun's pretty intense, and the Dodge isn't exactly famed for its AC system."

I spun around and found him leaning against the hood of the truck.  _The new truck_ , I reminded myself. It had been quite some time now, since we'd traded the Chevy for the Dodge — the red tetanus express for the blue one — but it still felt a bit strange. Like it wasn't  _mine_  yet. "Why don't you join me?"

Jacob grinned and, with a swift leap, he was beside me. "Wanna introduce me to Mom and . . . step-dad?"

"Phil's not here, actually. He's off to Philly for a game."

Jacob snorted with laughter. "Get outta here."

"No, really." I hesitated before the door, my hand hovering inches from the bell. Why was I so nervous? Oh, right. Because I fled from Forks, and drove across the states, and never called.

The bell rang.

Steps echoed.

The door opened.

And I was crushed between my mother's arms. My mother, who was small and slender and shrunk at the sight of a tennis ball hurled her way. My mother, who was always more of a best friend to me than a motherly figure, kissing my hair and whispering into the brown strands.

"Hi, Mom."

"Are you into sports, Jacob? You look like an athlete, if you ask me."

Jacob winked at me, his grin wide and warm. "Let's say I enjoy running. My brothers and I do that a lot — a lot of space."

Renée nodded, smiling, too. "I don't know if Bella's told you, but Phil — my husband — is a baseball player."

"Yes, I've heard."

"He's in Philadelphia now. I would go with him, but you called, and. . . ." She snuffled and blinked all too quickly, as though she wanted to prevent the tears from sliding down her face.

It was four days ago.

My suitcase — I was packing a real suitcase, not a small backpack — was nearly filled to the brim with T-shirts and shorts, and sweaters and jeans, and even a swimsuit and a sarong. I'd picked up those in Port Angeles. Charlie had been awkwardly pacing across the store, while I'd been trying on them, not much more comfortable than him.

It was then when Charlie walked into my bedroom, cordless phone in hand and a steady look of determination in his eyes. He pressed the phone into my hand, Renée's number already dialed.

" _Hello?_ "

"Mom?"

" _Bells!_ "

The obligatory pause was not as awkward as I'd expected.

"How are you doing?"

She didn't respond instantly. " _All right. Phil's leaving for Philadelphia tomorrow. Big game next in a few days._ "

"Are you going, too?"

"Well—"

"Because I was thinking of coming over," I blurted out.

"O— Over? Over where?"

"Jacksonville."

"You're coming to Jacksonville?" Her voice was slightly shrill now.

"Is that okay?"

"Oh, honey. Oh, baby, it's more than okay."

Flash-forward to today. Renée was still sitting beside me, blinking vigorously, eyes trained on her wine glass; she took one long sip.

Jacob cleared his throat; I kicked him under the table.

"Mom?" I asked tentatively. Renée placed the glass on the table. A little too brusquely. The crimson liquid undulated in its ceilingless prison, and some of it managed to slip out of the glass altogether, staining the linen tablecloth. Her expression was unreadable. "Mo—"

"I'm all right," my mother replied, her voice threatening to become a whisper.

Jacob winced. He set his fork beside a piece of beef. Leftovers in Jacob Black's plate. I wanted to laugh.

I didn't. I merely looked at my mother, who wiped her chin, even though there were no remnants of the beef or the wine, and pushed her chair back.

"I'd better get something to clean this mess. Otherwise it won't—" Her voice cracked. "—leave."

Hours later, after the sun had hidden in the Atlantic, I left a snoring Jacob in the guest room and tiptoed to Renée's bedroom. She lay on her bed, over the covers, still wearing her cut offs. She appeared to be reading a book, though, upon closer inspection, it turned out her eyes were skimming over the same sentence over and over.

She didn't look up right away.

"I'm sorry, okay?"

Renée closed the book and set it aside; her lips stretched into a smile as she met my gaze. "For what?"

I sat on the foot of the bed, resting my hands on my lap. "You must've been so worried. I'm sorry. I was all right, everything was all right. But I didn't think, I just wasn't thinking—" All the thoughts I hadn't made, all the thoughts I  _should_  have made . . . It all came surging into my head, like a giant wave, and there was no way to escape it.

"Sweetie . . . Sweetie, are you crying?"

My throat throbbed with all the words that had desperately been trying to claw their way out for so long — so long that they left scars like half-moons in their wake. So I opened my mouth to finally speak them and found them slowly dissipating in the air, spiraling like acrid smoke; I shook my head instead.

"It's all right, honey. Who am I to tell you how to live your life?"

My mother hugged me for the second time that day, and all I could think was how at home  _this_  felt.

* * *

The following afternoon, sitting on a Florida beach, our heads leaning into each other, Jacob and I watched the sun dip into the ocean, casting brilliant colors into the canvas of the sky. A violescent and orange and golden painting of inestimable value.

I still didn't know where we stood. It was a comfortable place, though; I could nestle in this vague blur of shelter for as long as I needed. For as long as we  _both_  needed.

My hand lingered over my heart, where the hole had thrived for so long. It was healed now. What was left of it was an invisible scar — I could almost feel it through my shirt, over my _alive_ , beating heart. I grinned at the setting sun.

Maybe it was not forever that awaited me. But it was  _now_ , and now was good.

 

 

_the end_


End file.
